Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
January 1, 2018
Géraldine Poisnel, Eider M. Arenaza‐Urquijo, Fabienne Collette et al.
103 citations
The Age-Well clinical trial examines whether an 18-month meditation-based intervention can improve mental health and well-being in older adults by targeting attentional and emotional aspects of aging. The trial randomly assigns 137 cognitively unimpaired older adults to the meditation program, a foreign language training program matched for structure and duration, or a passive control group. The study measures cognitive, behavioral, biological, neuroimaging, and sleep outcomes to assess the intervention's impact and underlying mechanisms. This is the first long-term nonpharmacological trial to address both emotional and cognitive dimensions of aging with such comprehensive assessments.
JAMA Neurology
October 10, 2022
Gaël Chételat, Antoine Lutz, Olga Klimecki et al.
45 citations
An 18-month randomized trial of meditation training versus non-native language training or no intervention in cognitively unimpaired adults aged 65 and older found no significant changes in brain volume or perfusion of the anterior cingulate cortex or insula from meditation. Meditation did produce superior improvements in a composite score of attention regulation, socioemotional capacities, and self-knowledge compared with language training. The findings confirm the feasibility of both meditation and language training in older adults, with high adherence and low dropout, but the positive behavioral effects of meditation were not accompanied by measurable changes in the targeted brain structures.
Alzheimer s & Dementia Translational Research & Clinical Interventions
January 1, 2018
Antoine Lutz, Olga Klimecki, Fabienne Collette et al.
18 citations
Long-term meditation expertise may protect against age-related decline. The Age-Well study compares 30 cognitively healthy older adults (65+) with at least 10,000 hours of mindfulness and compassion meditation to nonmeditator controls, using brain imaging, sleep, and biological measures sensitive to aging and Alzheimer's disease. Results are expected to clarify how meditation expertise affects aging and the mechanisms behind meditation-based interventions, informing future prevention trials for older populations.
Brain communications
January 1, 2025
Eugénie Cataldo, Eda Tipura, Corrado Corradi-Dell'Acqua et al.
4 citations
About 30% of stroke patients show a subtle form of body part disownership—a feeling that a hand, arm, leg, or part of the face does not belong to them—that standard verbal interviews miss. Using brain lesion analyses and network-based modeling in 105 hospitalized stroke patients and 55 healthy controls, the study found that this covert disownership involves widespread disconnections between temporo-occipital and parietal networks, as well as fronto-basal and occipital pathways, rather than damage to a single brain region. Key structures implicated include the right insula and basal ganglia for upper limb ownership, and the left superior longitudinal fasciculus for right hand disownership. The findings suggest that sensitive, non-verbal assessments are needed to detect this disorder early after stroke, and that understanding brain damage as network disruption can improve rehabilitation.
Sci Rep
November 27, 2024
Sacha Haudry, Anne-Laure Turpin, Brigitte Landeau et al.
3 citations
Expert meditators show preserved brain structure and better psycho-affective health compared to meditation-naive older adults, suggesting that long-term meditation practice may protect against age-related decline. The study examined older expert meditators and older meditation-naive participants, finding that the expert group had greater brain preservation and more favorable psycho-affective profiles. These results indicate that meditation could be a protective factor for brain and mental health in aging.