title: The Neural Mechanisms of Meditative Practices: Novel Approaches for Healthy Aging.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Meditation has been shown to have physical, cognitive, and psychological health benefits that can be used to promote healthy aging. However, the common and specific mechanisms of response remain elusive due to the diverse nature of mind-body practices.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this review, we aim to compare the neural circuits implicated in focused-attention meditative practices that focus on present-moment awareness to those involved in active-type meditative practices (e.g., yoga) that combine movement, including chanting, with breath practices and meditation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Recent meta-analyses and individual studies demonstrated common brain effects for attention-based meditative practices and active-based meditations in areas involved in reward processing and learning, attention and memory, awareness and sensory integration, and self-referential processing and emotional control, while deactivation was seen in the amygdala, an area implicated in emotion processing. Unique effects formindfulness practiceswere found in brain regions involved in body awareness, attention, and the integration of emotion and sensory processing. Effects specific toactive-based meditationsappeared in brain areas involved in self-control, social cognition, language, speech, tactile stimulation, sensorimotor integration, and motor function.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This review suggests that mind-body practices can target different brain systems that are involved in the regulation of attention, emotional control, mood, and executive cognition that can be used to treat or prevent mood and cognitive disorders of aging, such as depression and caregiver stress, or serve as "brain fitness" exercise. Benefits may include improving brain functional connectivity in brain systems that generally degenerate with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other aging-related diseases.
authors.affiliation: Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA ; Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA.
authors.forename: Bianca P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Acevedo
authors.affiliation: Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pospos
authors.affiliation: Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lavretsky
keywords: Aging; Brain; Meditation; Mindfulness; Qi Gong; Tai Chi; Yoga