PCC-hippocampal functional connectivity associated with stress biomarker changes after meditation training for healthy adults.
Diane Joss, Gunes Sevinc, John W Denninger, Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, Elizabeth A Hoge, Manoj Bhasin, Jeffery A Dusek, Eric Macklin, Towia A Libermann, Gregory L Fricchione, Herbert Benson, Sara W Lazar
Neuroscience letters May 23, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2025.138272 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractAmong 94 chronically stressed but otherwise healthy adults randomized to eight weeks of meditation, yoga, or stress education, only the meditation group showed a significant reduction in resting-state functional connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex and the left hippocampus. Changes in this brain connectivity were correlated with improvements in perceived stress, allostatic load, and anti-inflammatory gene expression, suggesting that meditation's neural effects are closely linked to physical wellness biomarkers. No such changes occurred in the yoga or stress education groups, indicating this neurobiological mechanism may be unique to meditation training.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 94 |
| Population | Chronically stressed but otherwise healthy adults |
| Interventions | Meditation training Yoga Stress education |
| Duration | 8-week intervention |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Biomarker Inflammation MRI Wellbeing |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key finding | Only meditation training, not yoga or stress education, reduced PCC-hippocampal resting-state functional connectivity, and those changes correlated with improvements in stress, allostatic load, and anti-inflammatory gene expression. |
Abstract
Meditation training has been shown to improve physical and mental health and promote neural plasticity, but more research is needed on the relationships between these effects. This study analyzed the Resting State Functional Connectivity (RSFC) of posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) among 94 chronically stressed but otherwise healthy adults randomized 1:1:1 to receive eight weeks of in-person one-on-one interventions focused either on meditation (n = 32), yoga (n = 31), or stress education (n = 31). We found only in the meditation arm, there was a significant reduction of PCC RSFC with the left hippocampus (p < 0.05, FWE corrected). Post-intervention changes of PCC-hippocampal RSFC were significantly (all p ≤ 0.01) correlated with changes of perceived stress (r = 0.54), allostatic load index (r = 0.58), and NF-κB anti-inflammatory gene expression (r = -0.55), suggesting the neural effects of meditation are closely associated with biomarkers of physical wellness. No significant changes with PCC RSFC were observed within the yoga or stress education arm, suggesting this neurobiological mechanism might be unique to meditation training.