Meditation Group Research Articles

Mindfulness Meditation Modulates Nociceptive-specific but Not Placebo-related Pain-predictive Patterns

Mindfulness meditation-induced pain relief is more effective and mechanistically distinct from placebo. Machine-learned multivariate patterns are highly specific and predictive of subjective pain responses. The Neurological Pain Signature (NPS) is a multivoxel pattern that is specific to direct nociceptive input. The Stimulus Intensity Independent Pain Signature-1 (SIIPS1) predicts pain beyond stimulus intensity and NPS response and explains placebo-related pain mechanisms, e.g., beliefs, conditioning. Because mindfulness meditation engages non-placebo mechanisms to reduce pain, we hypothesized that mindfulness-based analgesia would modulate the NPS but not SIIPS1. Forty healthy, pain-free individuals were randomly assigned to a four session (20 minutes/session) mindfulness (n=20) or book-listening control (n=20) regimen after baseline pain assessment. Following the respective interventions, BOLD scans were acquired during two heat series (ten, 12s stimuli of noxious 49°C) administered to the right calf at rest (pre-manipulation) followed by two heat series (post-manipulation) during mindfulness (meditation group) or rest (control group). Visual analog scale (VAS) pain ratings (0= "no pain"; 10="worst pain imaginable") were collected after each series. Stimulus-related activation beta maps were resampled to match the voxel dimensions of the NPS and SIIPS1 (canlab.github.io). Beta values were compared to respective signature weights by the dot product to create scalar response values to test study hypotheses. There was a significant pre vs. post X group interaction on NPS responses (p=.04, np2=.11). Post-hoc tests revealed that mindfulness meditation reduced NPS responses when compared to rest (p=.03, np2=.12) and the control group (p=.42, np2=.02). The ANOVA conducted on the SIIPS1 revealed no significant interactions (p=.33, np2=.02) or main effects of manipulation (p=.94, np2=.00) and group (p=.87, np2=.00). The present findings provide novel evidence that mindfulness directly modulates nociceptive-specific but not placebo-related neural mechanisms. Grant support from NCT03414138.

Classification of Rajayoga Meditators Based on the Duration of Practice Using Graph Theoretical Measures of Functional Connectivity from Task-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on mental training techniques such as meditation have reported benefits like increased attention and concentration, better emotional regulation, as well as reduced stress and anxiety. Although several studies have examined functional activation and connectivity in long-term as well as short-term meditators from different meditation traditions, it is unclear if long-term meditation practice brings about distinct changes in network properties of brain functional connectivity that persist during task performance. Indeed, task-based functional connectivity studies of meditators are rare. This study aimed to differentiate between long-term and short-term Rajayoga meditators based on functional connectivity between regions of interest in the brain. Task-based fMRI was captured as the meditators performed an engaging task. The graph theoretical-based functional connectivity measures of task-based fMRI were calculated using CONN toolbox and were used as features to classify the two groups using Machine Learning models. In this study, we recruited two age and sex-matched groups of Rajayoga meditators from the Brahma Kumaris tradition that differed in the duration of their meditation experience: Long-term practitioners (n = 12, mean 13,596 h) and short-term practitioners (n = 10, mean 1095 h). fMRI data were acquired as they performed an engaging task and functional connectivity metrics were calculated from this data. These metrics were used as features in training machine learning algorithms. Specifically, we used adjacency matrices generated from graph measures, global efficiency, and local efficiency, as features. We computed functional connectivity with 132 ROIs as well as 32 network ROIs. Five machine learning models, such as logistic regression, SVM, decision tree, random forest, and gradient boosted tree, were trained to classify the two groups. Accuracy, precision, sensitivity, selectivity, area under the curve receiver operating characteristics curve were used as performance measures. The graph measures were effective features, and tree-based algorithms such as decision tree, random forest, and gradient boosted tree yielded the best performance (test accuracy >84% with 132 ROIs) in classifying the two groups of meditators. Our results support the hypothesis that long-term meditative practices alter brain functional connectivity networks even in nonmeditative contexts. Further, the use of adjacency matrices from graph theoretical measures of high-dimensional fMRI data yields a promising feature set for machine learning classifiers.

Remote detection of the group meditation with several sensors

Remote detection of the group meditation with several sensors

Mindfulness meditation in residential aged care: what frail older people identified as beneficial for their spiritual care and well-being

ABSTRACT Spiritual care in Residential Aged Care (RAC) is primarily concerned with meaning-making and residents’ wellness. This qualitative study evaluated what older people living in RAC thought were the benefits of participating in a mindfulness meditation group and how it enhanced spiritual growth/wellbeing. Thirteen residents attended a six-week group program and were interviewed at the beginning and end of the program. Four (4) themes were identified: 1) meaningfully connecting and sharing, 2) providing a supportive and reflective space, 3) practising mindfulness-meditation and 4) practising and expressing gratitude. Findings inform the provision of better emotional/spiritual support and invite further research.

Training in Mindfulness or Loving-kindness Meditation Is Associated with Lower Variability in Social Connectedness Across Time

ObjectivesResearch demonstrates that meditation interventions tend to positively influence social well-being. Yet, prior research has exclusively examined meditation in relation to average levels of social outcomes (e.g., social connectedness), despite other work demonstrating variability or fluctuations in social functioning play a distinct role in contributing to well-being. This study examined the hypothesis that training in mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness meditation would predict lower variability in social connectedness, even accounting for their positive influence on average levels of social connectedness. Moreover, this study also examined the hypothesis that lower variability in positive and negative emotions would mediate the link between training in meditation and reduced variability in social connectedness.MethodsThese hypotheses were tested using a randomized study of 224 mid-life adults. Participants received training in either mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation for 6 weeks. They reported their daily social connectedness and emotions for 2 weeks prior to the training, 6 weeks during the training, and 3 weeks after the training.ResultsConsistent with hypotheses, results demonstrated that participants in both meditation groups reported lower variability in social connectedness across the course of the intervention, even accounting for average levels of connectedness. Moreover, lower positive and negative affective variability partially mediated the association between time (training in meditation) and reduced variability in social connectedness.ConclusionsThese results suggest that (a) meditation may help to smooth social ups and downs across time and that (b) it may do so via its association with reduced affective variability.

Effects of Different Types of Meditation on Diastolic Blood Pressure

Background: The study was intended to find out the effects of different types of meditations namely transcendental meditation and heart rhythm meditation on diastolic blood pressure among male college students. Methodology: Sixty male students studying bachelor’s degree in colleges in and around Tiruvannamalai District, Tamil Nadu, India were randomly selected as subjects to achieve the purpose of this study. The age of subjects ranged between 18 and 24 years, height and weight ranged from 158 to 171 cm and 56 to 69 kg respectively. The selected sixty subjects were divided into three groups of twenty subjects each at random. Group I (transcendental meditation), Group II (heart rhythm meditation) and Group III (control). Prior to and immediately after the training programme, all the subjects of three groups were tested on the selected dependent variable. ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) was used to analyse the collected data to find out the effects of different types of meditations on diastolic blood pressure. Whenever the obtained ‘F’ ratio for the adjusted post-test mean was found to be significant, Scheffe’s test was applied as post hoc test to determine the paired mean differences, if any. The 0.05 level of confidence was fixed to test the level of significance which was considered as an appropriate. Results & Conclusion: There was a significant differences exist among transcendental meditation group, heart rhythm meditation group and control group on selected physiological variable namely diastolic blood pressure. There was significant change on selected physiological variable namely diastolic blood pressure due to transcendental meditation and heart rhythm meditation after twelve weeks of training period. Significant differences were found between transcendental meditation group and heart rhythm meditation group on selected physiological variable namely diastolic blood pressure after twelve weeks of training period.

Verhulst map measures: new biomarkers for heart rate classification.

Recording, monitoring, and analyzing biological signals has received significant attention in medicine. A fundamental phase for understanding a bio-system under various conditions is to process the corresponding bio-signal appropriately. To this effect, different conventional and nonlinear approaches have been proposed. However, since the non-stationary properties of the bio-signals are not revealed by traditional linear methods, nonlinear dynamical techniques play a crucial role in examining the behavior of a bio-system. This work proposes new bio-markers based on the chaotic nature of the biomedical signals. These measures were introduced using the Verhulst map, a simple tool for characterizing the morphology of the reconstructed phase space. For this purpose, we extracted the features from the heart rate (HR) signals of six groups of meditators and non-meditators. For a typical classification problem, the performance of some conventional classifiers, including the k-nearest neighbor, support vector machine, and Naïve Bayes, was appraised separately. In addition, the competence of a hybrid classification strategy was inspected using majority voting. The results indicated a maximum accuracy, F1-score, and sensitivity of 100%. These findings reveal that the proposed framework is eminently capable of analyzing and classifying the HR signals of the groups. In conclusion, the Verhulst diagram-based measures are simple and based on the dynamics of the bio-signals, which can be served for quantifying different signals in medical systems.

Health and school performance during home isolation at Institución Educativa Privada Prescott in Puno, Perú

ABSTRACT Approximately 2000 indigenous students at Institución Educativa Privada Prescott in Puno, located in the Andes high on the Altiplano of Lake Titicaca, have been instructed in Transcendental Meditation. In this study, we examine the impact of home isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic on physical, cognitive, and emotional health, and school performance for a group of 54 meditating students, and contrast these results to a comparison group of 53 meditating students who reported their health and learning prior to the pandemic. The study is the first to consider the association of home isolation on students practicing meditation in a group: (A) at the same time of day and in the same place as part of their daily school routine and (B) during online sessions at the same time of day but in a different place. Findings indicate both approaches to group meditation before and during the pandemic produced favourable results for health and school performance.

Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Doctors' Mindfulness, Patient Safety Culture, Patient Safety Competency and Adverse Event.

Objective: This study investigated the effects of mindfulness meditation on doctors’ mindfulness, patient safety culture, patient safety competency, and adverse events. Methods: We recruited 91 doctors from a hospital in China and randomized them to mindfulness meditation group (n = 46) and a waiting control group (n = 45). The mindfulness meditation group underwent an 8-week mindfulness meditation intervention, while the control group underwent no intervention. We measured four main variables (mindfulness, patient safety culture, patient safety competency, and adverse event) before and after the mindfulness meditation intervention. Results: In the experimental group, mindfulness, patient safety culture and patient safety competency were significantly higher compared with those of the control group. In the control group, there were no significant differences in any of the three variables between the pre-test and post-test. Adverse events in the experimental group were significantly lower than in the control group. Conclusions: The intervention of mindfulness meditation significantly improved the level of mindfulness, patient safety culture and patient safety competency. During the mindfulness meditation intervention, the rate of adverse events in the meditation group was also significantly lower than in the control group. As a simple and effective intervention, mindfulness meditation plays a positive role in improving patient safety and has certain promotional value.

Mindfulness in Health Education: From Physical to Virtual Presence during the Pandemic, an Anthropological Study in Spain

Research on traditional mindfulness-based interventions supports the position that they are effective in treating psychological problems and benefiting healthy people. However, more research is needed on the effectiveness of online interventions, a field that is growing and developing rapidly, especially with the onset of the pandemic, as many meditation groups have moved into cyberspace. There is little research on the difficulties that these groups face and the effectiveness of online mindfulness practice. In this work, we analyze the effects of the transition from training with physical presence to virtual training in mindfulness during the lockdown and subsequent period of social distancing due to SARS-CoV-2. Specifically, we analyze the changes in the means and the methodology and the effects of the transition to virtual presence; finally, we evaluate the results obtained through both training models. The investigation was carried out in a center where face-to-face training has been provided for twelve years and that, with the onset of the pandemic, moved its practice groups to cyberspace. The methodology is anthropological and is supported by quantitative and qualitative techniques. The results show that online training breaks the traditional chrono-topo complex and opens up new access possibilities, but limits bodily practices, decreases the intensity of the experience, and slows down the pace of learning. However, the effectiveness is maintained by showing equivalent result rates at the end of the training.

Public Household, Private Congregation

Members of the Brahma Kumaris movement in Nepal relocate their religious practices away from traditional Hindu puja (worship directed toward images of deities) in households to meditation services held in the movement’s centers. Although this change involves a shift from the seemingly private household to the seemingly public congregation, household puja is “public” in many respects, while Brahma Kumaris group meditation is comparatively “private.” Other public spaces that offer relative privacy, such as restaurants or theaters, are often not available to Nepali women. The organization of Nepali households, the familiar nature of puja, and its performative aspects suggest that puja is “open and accessible”—and thus public—despite its location in the home. In contrast, the Brahma Kumaris are culturally alternative; their meditation is “isolated and inaccessible,” occurring in physically secluded sites, and some practices are “illegible” to other Nepalis, offering a kind of privacy. I suggest that public and private are best conceptualized as situational and temporary, not defining features of physical spaces.

The Two Arrows of Pain: Mechanisms of Pain Related to Meditation and Mental States of Aversion and Identification

ObjectivesAccording to the core Buddhist psychology models of the “two arrows of pain” and “co-dependent origination,” pain is the resultant of bodily and mental factors, which can be regulated by meditation states and traits. Here we investigated how pain and the related aversion and identification (self-involvement) experiences are modulated by focused attention meditation (FAM), open monitoring meditation (OMM), and loving kindness meditation (LKM), as well as by meditation expertise.MethodsTheravada Buddhist long-term meditators were matched with a group of short-term meditators. Nociceptive electrical stimulation was administered during FAM, OMM, and LKM, and in a non-meditative rest condition. Experience reports of pain, aversion, and identification were collected in each trial.ResultsPain thresholds were higher in long-term meditators than in short-term meditators. In the short-term meditators, as compared to rest, pain was reduced in FAM and OMM, and aversion and identification in all meditation conditions. In the long-term meditators, pain was reduced only in LKM. Identification was reduced in the three forms of meditation, while aversion was not affected by meditation. Further analyses with a particular focus on long-term meditators showed that pain was predicted to increase with meditation expertise, aversion, and identification. Granger causality analysis revealed that aversion and pain, as well as aversion and identification, causally influenced each other; identification causally influenced pain. This pattern of results about the relationships between pain, aversion, and identification was largely overlapping in the group of short-term meditators.ConclusionsThe findings reveal mechanisms of pain in interaction with aversive and identification mental states, as well as their modulation by meditation states and traits. They also suggest that pain feeling is the resultant of coupling of sensory and mental factors, thus highlighting the relevance of the second arrow of pain and providing a clarification of the epistemological gap between sensory causation and mental state causation of pain, in terms of a co-production mechanism with multiple stages. In particular, the evidence about the causal influences of identification on pain highlights a self-related factor of relevance in pain experiences that can be modulated by mindfulness. The study also inspires new testable neuroscientific hypotheses, and sheds new light on core Buddhist psychology models, based on evidence from a controlled experimental setting and experience dimension reports by long-term meditators with enhanced mindfulness skills.

Daily meditation program for anxiety in individuals admitted to the antepartum unit: a multicenter randomized controlled trial (MEDITATE)

Inpatient antepartum women have higher levels of anxiety than outpatient. Former randomized trials using mindful meditation programs to decrease maternal anxiety have conflicting results; some studies showed a considerable decrease in anxiety levels, whereas others showed no difference. A paucity of trials exist using mindful meditation for maternal anxiety in the inpatient antepartum population; most studies focus on the outpatient clinic population. Because of inpatient acuity and anxiety factors, we conducted a randomized trial to target this population. This study aimed to compare anxiety levels on day 4 of either routine care or routine care plus a twice-daily application-based mindful meditation program in women admitted to the antepartum unit. In a multisite randomized trial (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03737279), women admitted to the antepartum units were randomized to either routine care plus educational pamphlets (control arm) or routine care plus a twice-daily application-based mindful meditation program (intervention arm). The inclusion criteria were age of at least 18 years, gestational age of at least 23 weeks, planned inpatient care for >3 days from randomization, and care by our university physician team. The primary outcome was maternal state anxiety level (measured using the validated State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) on day 4 (randomization being day 1). The secondary outcomes included stress (measured using the Perceived Stress Scale) and depression (measured using the Edinburgh Depression Scale) on day 4, latency period from randomization to delivery, patient experience, number of meditation sessions, and total meditation time. A total of 56 women were needed for 90% power to detect a decrease in the primary outcome by 30% in the intervention group, compared with the control group. All women were observed using an intention-to-treat analysis. We compared the continuous variables using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test or t test and the categorical variables using the chi-squared test or the Fisher exact test. From March 4, 2019, to December 20, 2019, 412 women were screened for eligibility, 77 women (18.7%) were found eligible, and 56 women (72.7%) were randomized with 28 women in each group. Of note, 96.4% of women completed at least 1 meditation session, and 39.3% of women completed all meditation sessions. The mean score of the anxiety level using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory on day 4 was not significantly different (P=.24) between the control group (42.0±10.8) and meditation group (37.5±13.1). A decreased anxiety score from day 1 to day 4 was seen in both the control group and meditation group (-4.7 vs -9.4, respectively; P=.12). The rate of abnormal State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scores on day 4 was not significantly different between the control group and meditation group (62% vs 45%, respectively; P=.28). When asked about the experience with the research trial, 88.8% of women in the control group and 89.5% of women in the meditation group reported a positive experience. Compared with the control group, a twice-daily application-based mindful meditation program for women admitted to the antepartum unit did not considerably decrease the anxiety score on day 4. However, >88% of women in both groups had a positive experience with the nonpharmacologic intervention.

To study the effectiveness of mindfulness-based meditation in the functional outcome of osteoarthritis knee and perceived stress scores and markers of obesity in postmenopausal women

Background: The global burdens of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and obesity are rising, producing enormous losses of life and disability-adjusted life-years in both developed and developing nations. Stress is a modifiable risk factor for the development of CVD. Postmenopausal women with osteoarthritis (OA) of knee joint may often report episodes of knee instability limiting their daily activities and this causes an added stress. Aims: To evaluate the effects of mindfulness-based meditation on functional outcome of OA knee and to study the effect of mindfulness-based meditation on perceived stress scores (PSSs) and markers of obesity in postmenopausal women. Materials and Methods: This interventional study was conducted on forty postmenopausal women in a tertiary care hospital of Eastern India after taking institutional ethical clearance and informed consent of the patients. Presumptive stressful life events scale (PSLES) scores and PSSs of the patients were assessed. Patients with PSLES scores more than 200 were included in the study. They were all on nonvegetarian diet and came from the middle socioeconomic class. Patients were randomly allocated into two groups and received either balancing exercises and mindfulness-based meditation (Group A) or balancing exercises (Group B). Patients of both groups were age matched. Body mass index (BMI) and waist/hip ratios were measured. The outcome measures were visual analog scale (VAS) and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scores. Results: There was no significant difference in age, PSLES and PSS scores, and WOMAC and VAS scores between the two groups before intervention. AGE Group A 62.4 ± 4.16 versus Group B 62.15 ± 3.75, P = 0.85; BMI Group A 26.6 ± 1.97 versus Group B 26.2 ± 1.002, P = 0.41; waist/hip Group A 0.833 ± 0.033 versus Group B 0.832 ± 0.03, P = 0.96; PSLES Group A 296.3 ± 34.95 versus Group B 291.8 ± 25.2, P = 0.65; PSS Group A 33.38.1 ± 1.97 versus Group B 32.8 ± 2.86, P = 0.185. PSS scores (20.75 ± 1.9 vs. 27.1 ± 1.65; P < 0.0001) and waist/hip ratio were significantly less in Group A as compared to Group B following intervention. Group A had significantly lower WOMAC (38.1 ± 4.03 vs. 50.8 ± 3.78; P < 0.0001) and VAS (4.35 ± 0.77 vs. 5.75 ± 0.68; P < 0.0001) scores as compared to Group B after practice of balancing exercises along with mindfulness-based meditation. Waist/hip ratio was significantly less in the group practicing mindfulness-based meditation (Group A) as compared to Group B. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicate that balancing exercises when practiced along with stress relaxation exercises are more effective in improving the functional ability of OA knee in postmenopausal women.

Forget What You Have Learned: The Effect of Meditation on Intentional Forgetting

One of the essential aspects of memory efficiency is the lack of recall (forgetting) of erroneous, traumatic, or unimportant information. Therefore, the development of tools for control and facilitation of forgetting is of particular importance. This work aims to investigate the impact of systematic mental training (open-monitoring meditation) on the magnitude of intentional forgetting effect. 106 volunteers (69 women, 18–35 years old) participated in our experiment. First, we measured 1) the intentional forgetting effect (using the think/not-thinking paradigm followed by a questionnaire on preferred intentional forgetting strategies) and 2) the Stroop effect (using the classic Stroop test). Second, participants either completed a course of 30 open-monitoring meditations (experimental group) or 30 sham meditations (control group 1), or were not subject to any intervention at all (control group 2). Finally, we performed the same measures as we did at the first stage of the study in order to register the effect of open-monitoring meditation on inhibition mechanisms that are presumably involved in the manifestation of intentional forgetting effect. We found no statistically significant influence of the intervention type neither on intentional forgetting effect nor Stroop effect. Although, it was shown that after the intervention, in the meditation group, cognitive strategies preventing intentional forgetting were used much less frequently than in the pseudomeditation (p=0.009) and control (p=0.007) groups, and forgetting-facilitating strategies were used more often than before the intervention (p=0.013). These results indicate the need for further investigation of the amnesogenic potential of various mental training types; also, they provide some indirect support for our initial suggestion about the impact of open-monitoring meditation on the magnitude of intentional forgetting effect.

The Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation on Trait Mindfulness, Perceived Stress, Cortisol, and C-Reactive Protein in Nursing Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

PurposeMindfulness meditation was used to reduce stress and its responses such as cortisol and C-reactive protein (CRP) among healthy and ill individuals in various cultures, but its effect has not yet been studied among nursing students, experiencing tremendous stress. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of mindfulness meditation on trait mindfulness, perceived stress, serum cortisol, and serum C-reactive proteins (CRP) in nursing students.Patients and MethodsUsing a two-arm, randomized, parallel study (conducted in a large university in Jordan, 108 nursing students were randomly assigned to experimental group receiving five 30-minute weekly sessions of mindfulness meditation and control group sitting quiet during the experimental sessions. Trait mindfulness, perceived stress, serum cortisol, and CRP were measured at baseline and end of the intervention.ResultsUsing one-way MANOVA and post-hoc comparisons, the results showed that mindfulness meditation was significantly effective in decreasing serum cortisol levels and perceived stress. The mindfulness meditation also decreased CRP and increased trait mindfulness although the results did not reach statistically significant levels.ConclusionThese findings underscore the need for serious consideration of mindfulness meditation in nursing colleges to improve stress and raise immunity in this vulnerable population.Trial RegistrationMindfulness Meditation for Nursing Students: clinicaltrials.gov, identifier: NCT05099224.

Evaluation of Mindfulness Training Combined with Aerobic Exercise on Neurological Function and Quality of Life in Patients with Peripheral Neuropathy Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Objective To investigate the effect of mindfulness training on neurological function and quality of life in patients with type 2 diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Methods This study selected 120 patients with type 2 diabetic peripheral neuropathy and randomly divided them into three independent subgroups according to different training methods: mindfulness meditation group (MM), aerobic exercise group (AE), and mindfulness combined with aerobic exercise group. (MMAE). The three groups were analyzed for SNCV and MNCV velocities, MAAS and TCSS scores, neurological symptom scores, neurological sign scores, and quality of life. Results Before treatment, SNCV and MNCV were not significantly significant (P > 0.05), but after treatment, SNCV and MNCV were significantly higher, and the MMAE group changed more significantly (P < 0.05); before treatment, MAAS and TCSS scores were not significant (P > 0.05), but after treatment, MAAS scores were significantly higher, TCSS scores were significantly lower, and more significantly in MMAE; the difference was significant (P < 0.05); before treatment, there was no statistical significance of the neurological signs score (P > 0.05); after treatment, the neurological symptoms score and neurological signs score were significantly reduced, and the changes in the MMAE group were statistically significant (P < 0.05); there was no significant difference in the quality of life score before treatment (P > 0.05), and the quality of life score in the MMAE group was significantly increased (P < 0.05). Conclusion Mindfulness training combined with aerobic exercise has an ideal therapeutic effect on patients with type 2 diabetic peripheral neuropathy, and has a very important role in improving the neurological function and quality of life of the patients. It is a safe and effective treatment method. Therefore, mindfulness training combined with aerobic exercise is worthy of promotion and application.

Promoting Ethical Behaviours by Instant Mindfulness Meditation in Ethics Education

There is a growing need to identify what really can converge classroom learning to the real-life practising of ethical principles. We examine if the effectiveness of ethics education can be improved through meditation-based mindfulness intervention. Our baseline experiment is a procedurally modified version of the anagram exercise (Ruedy and Schweitzer 2010) for measuring unethical behaviour. We introduce a brief meditation intervention to induce instant mindfulness. Our findings indicate substantive evidence confirming the positive effect of the state of mindfulness on ethical behaviour. Subjects in the meditation group engage in more low-level cheating compared to the control group who cheated more severely. Gender and academic grade do not influence ethical behaviour. Mindfulness fosters composure, mental poise, and a conducive environment for upholding ethical values, as indicated by a lower incidence of cheating in our study. We propose to promote a learning environment with mindfulness intervention in educational programmes.

Abstract 12055: Immediate Effect of Yoga Based Om-Meditation on Heart Rate Variability During Different Phases of Menstruation

Introduction: Stress may play a role in causing menstrual irregularities predisposing to increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Stress and cyclic variations in endogenous hormone levels during the menstrual cycle (MC) may affect heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of cardiac autonomic function (CAF) and mental stress. Strategies that reduce stress and improve HRV may prevent menstrual irregularities and thus CVD. We evaluated the effect of yoga-based OM-meditation on HRV during different phases of MC in young healthy females. Methods: A non-randomized controlled study was conducted on healthy young females (n=20) with normal menstrual cycle. Meditation group subjects (n=10) practiced Om-meditation while control group subjects (n=10) relaxed quietly for 10 minutes. Each subject received an intervention thrice during menstrual, proliferative and secretory phase. Data was collected before and immediately after every intervention. BMI, blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and HRV were measured. Frequency domain method was used for an analysis of HRV. Results: The mean age of participants was 19.2±0.79 and 19.3±0.82 years; and mean period of MC was 31.1±2.76 and 30.3±2.4 days in meditation and control group respectively. There was no change in the baseline values of BMI, BP and HR between two groups and were within normal range. Between group analysis (ANCOVA) of HRV spectrum showed that Om-meditation had significantly decreased low frequency (LF) component of HRV (p&lt;0.05) and LF/HF ratio (p&lt;0.05); and increased high frequency (HF) component (p&lt;0.05) of HRV during all the three phases of MC. Conclusion: These results suggest that practice of Om-meditation for 10 minutes can induce beneficial changes in HRV by reducing sympathetic activity and shifting autonomic balance towards parasympathetic dominance. Om-meditation may reduce mental stress and optimize CAF during different phases of MC. However, this needs an evaluation in a larger trial.

Effects of Meditation on Structural Changes of the Brain in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment or Alzheimer's Disease Dementia.

Previous cross-sectional studies reported positive effects of meditation on the brain areas related to attention and executive function in the healthy elderly population. Effects of long-term regular meditation in persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease dementia (AD) have rarely been studied. In this study, we explored changes in cortical thickness and gray matter volume in meditation-naïve persons with MCI or mild AD after long-term meditation intervention. MCI or mild AD patients underwent detailed clinical and neuropsychological assessment and were assigned into meditation or non-meditation groups. High resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRI) were acquired at baseline and after 6 months. Longitudinal symmetrized percentage changes (SPC) in cortical thickness and gray matter volume were estimated. Left caudal middle frontal, left rostral middle frontal, left superior parietal, right lateral orbitofrontal, and right superior frontal cortices showed changes in both cortical thickness and gray matter volume; the left paracentral cortex showed changes in cortical thickness; the left lateral occipital, left superior frontal, left banks of the superior temporal sulcus (bankssts), and left medial orbitofrontal cortices showed changes in gray matter volume. All these areas exhibited significantly higher SPC values in meditators as compared to non-meditators. Conversely, the left lateral occipital, and right posterior cingulate cortices showed significantly lower SPC values for cortical thickness in the meditators. In hippocampal subfields analysis, we observed significantly higher SPC in gray matter volume of the left CA1, molecular layer HP, and CA3 with a trend for increased gray matter volume in most other areas. No significant changes were found for the hippocampal subfields in the right hemisphere. Analysis of the subcortical structures revealed significantly increased volume in the right thalamus in the meditation group. The results of the study point out that long-term meditation practice in persons with MCI or mild AD leads to salutary changes in cortical thickness and gray matter volumes. Most of these changes were observed in the brain areas related to executive control and memory that are prominently at risk in neurodegenerative diseases.