The Mindfulness Meditator's Brain: From Prospecting to Task

Abstract

Mindfulness meditation is a technique originating in Buddhist culture, which seeks to "harvest inner awareness" by focusing attention on the here and now, accepting thoughts and letting them flow. Through different studies it has been shown that these bring various benefits at the level of the central nervous system in the short and long term, whose mechanisms are not yet elucidated. In order to achieve an approach to the morphofunctional bases of the changes observed in meditators, this review compiles information from studies that have used nuclear magnetic resonance, voxel-based morphometry, functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalogram to assess them. Among the imageological changes reported, important cortical changes were found, including changes that include thickening of the prefrontal cortex, insula and increase in hippocampal volumes, in addition to changes in the striatum, the posterior cingulate cortex and the precuneus; structures involved in the control of emotions, in memory, attention and learning. As for what was evidenced with the electroencephalogram, when studying the functional changes of the electrical activity of the brain, the results have been inconclusive, however, the alpha and theta waves stood out over the rest, showing a greater amplitude in the mindfulness meditators.