Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Aug 31;107(35):15649-52.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1011043107. Epub 2010 Aug 16.

Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate

Yi-Yuan Tang  1 , Qilin Lu, Xiujuan Geng, Elliot A Stein, Yihong Yang, Michael I Posner
Affiliations

Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate

Yi-Yuan Tang et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is part of a network implicated in the development of self-regulation and whose connectivity changes dramatically in development. In previous studies we showed that 3 h of mental training, based on traditional Chinese medicine (integrative body-mind training, IBMT), increases ACC activity and improves self-regulation. However, it is not known whether changes in white matter connectivity can result from small amounts of mental training. We here report that 11 h of IBMT increases fractional anisotropy (FA), an index indicating the integrity and efficiency of white matter in the corona radiata, an important white-matter tract connecting the ACC to other structures. Thus IBMT could provide a means for improving self-regulation and perhaps reducing or preventing various mental disorders.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Eleven hours of IBMT increases fiber integrity in the left anterior corona radiata (after versus before training, two sagittal sections, x = −17 and −18).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
FA in the left anterior corona radiata before and after IBMT or RT. Changes are shown in FA values in the left anterior corona radiata before and after 11 h of IBMT (P < 0.01) or relaxation training (P > 0.05), indicating the training effects on the integrity and efficacy of the white matter in the region.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Demonstration of brain regions with significant FA increases after 11 h of IBMT. The demonstration map shows the significant FA increases in the left anterior corona radiata (green area), the left superior corona radiata (purple area), the genu of corpus callosum (blue area), and the body of corpus callosum (red area) after 11 h of IBMT, all P < 0.05.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
The intensity and number of voxels after versus before training. The horizontal axis illustrates the 1 − PFWE (corrected) value of a paired t test result, whereas the vertical axis shows the number of voxels with the corresponding P value. The difference between posttest versus pretest was significant, if the 1 − PFWE (corrected) value was larger than 0.95. The gray bar indicates the significance area. No significance was detected in both IBMT (solid line) and RT (dashed line) groups.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Bengtsson SL, et al. Extensive piano practicing has regionally specific effects on white matter development. Nat Neurosci. 2005;8:1148–1150. - PubMed
    1. Han Y, et al. Gray matter density and white matter integrity in pianists’ brain: A combined structural and diffusion tensor MRI study. Neurosci Lett. 2009;459:3–6. - PubMed
    1. Imfeld A, Oechslin MS, Meyer M, Loenneker T, Jancke L. White matter plasticity in the corticospinal tract of musicians: A diffusion tensor imaging study. Neuroimage. 2009;46:600–607. - PubMed
    1. Ullén F. Is activity regulation of late myelination a plastic mechanism in the human nervous system? Neuron Glia Biol. 2009;5:29–34. - PubMed
    1. Hu Y, et al. (2010) Enhanced white matter tracts integrity in children with abacus training. Hum Brain Mapp. (Epub ahead of print) - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources