Effects of Eight-Week Meditation Training on Brain Structure and Function: A Comparison of Mindful Attention Training and Cognitively-Based Compassion Training

old_uid13064
titleEffects of Eight-Week Meditation Training on Brain Structure and Function: A Comparison of Mindful Attention Training and Cognitively-Based Compassion Training
start_date2013/11/25
schedule11h-12h30
onlineno
location_infoBât 452
detailsinvitée par Antoine Lutz
summaryIn this presentation I will review recent findings from the Compassion and Attention Longitudinal Meditation (CALM) study, a randomized clinical trial testing the effects of two different types of meditation training. In the CALM study, healthy adults without meditation experience were randomized to three different eight-week programs: Mindful-Attention Training (a.k.a. Shamatha meditation), Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (a secular training in loving-kindness and compassion meditation based on the Tibetan Lojong tradition), or an active control intervention (health education course). Before and after the interventions, a subset of the study participants took part in structural and functional brain imaging and concurrent recordings of cardiac and respiratory activity to assess the autonomic nervous system. We found that the two meditation interventions had a different impact on the brain responses and autonomic responses to emotional challenge, and that meditation training promoted neuroplastic changes in the brain after only eight weeks. The results obtained to date suggest that both types of meditation training may have enduring impact on the central and autonomic nervous systems.
responsiblesBéranger, Rossetti