Alterations in task-induced activity and resting-state fluctuations in visual and DMN areas revealed in long-term meditators.
Recently we proposed that the information contained in spontaneously emerging (resting-state) fluctuations may reflect individually unique neuro-cognitive traits. One prediction of this conjecture, termed the "spontaneous trait reactivation" (STR) hypothesis, is that resting-state activity patterns could be diagnostic of unique personalities, talents and life-styles of individuals. Long-term meditators could provide a unique experimental group to test this hypothesis. Using fMRI we found that, during resting-state, the amplitude of spontaneous fluctuations in long-term mindfulness meditation (MM) practitioners was enhanced in the visual cortex and significantly reduced in the DMN compared to naïve controls. Importantly, during a visual recognition memory task, the MM group showed heightened visual cortex responsivity, concomitant with weaker negative responses in Default Mode Network (DMN) areas. This effect was also reflected in the behavioral performance, where MM practitioners performed significantly faster than the control group. Thus, our results uncover opposite changes in the visual and default mode systems in long-term meditators which are revealed during both rest and task. The results support the STR hypothesis and extend it to the domain of local changes in the magnitude of the spontaneous fluctuations.
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel; Faculty of Education, The Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Aviva
A
Berkovich-Ohana
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Michal
M
Harel
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Avital
A
Hahamy
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Amos
A
Arieli
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Electronic address: rafi.malach@gmail.com.
Rafael
R
Malach
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012146:Rest / Q000502:physiology*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*
Default Mode Network; Mindfulness meditation; Resting-state; Visual activity; fMRI