Advanced concentrative absorption meditation reorganizes functional connectivity gradients of the brain: 7T MRI and phenomenology case study of jhana meditation.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) April 1, 2025 Umay Demir, Winson Fu Zun Yang, Matthew D Sacchet 5 citations
Advanced concentrative absorption meditation known as jhana (ACAM-J) disrupts the brain's typical hierarchical organization, shifting functional gradients toward a more globally integrated state between sensory and higher-order cognitive regions. It also increases differentiation between sensory-related and attention modulation-related areas, consistent with meditators' subjective reports. These findings come from an intensive case study using nonlinear dimensionality reduction of functional neuroimaging data, analyzed with linear mixed models and correlations. The work highlights the need for further research on brain reorganization and health implications of both short-term and long-term ACAM-J practice.