Ganesan Saampras, Van Dam Nicholas T, Kamboj Sunjeev K, Tsuchiyagaito Aki, Sacchet Matthew D, Misaki Masaya, Moffat Bradford A, Lorenzetti Valentina, Zalesky Andrew
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
bioRxiv. 2024 Oct 26:2024.10.25.618656. doi: 10.1101/2024.10.25.618656.
Meditation can benefit well-being and mental health, but novices often struggle to effectively recognize and disengage from mental processes during meditation due to limited awareness, potentially diminishing meditation's benefits. We investigated whether personalised high-precision neurofeedback (NF) can improve disengagement from mental activity during meditation and enhance meditation's outcomes. In a single-blind, controlled, longitudinal paradigm, 40 novice meditators underwent two consecutive days of meditation training with intermittent visual feedback from either their own (N=20) or a matched participant's (N=20; control group) posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) activity measured using 7 Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging. During training, the experimental group showed stronger functional decoupling of PCC from dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, indicating better control over disengagement from mental processes during meditation. This led to greater improvements in emotional well-being and mindful awareness of mental processes during a week of real-world self-guided meditation. We provide compelling evidence supporting the utility of high-precision NF-guided meditation training to optimise real-world meditation practice for well-being.
冥想有益于身心健康，但新手由于意识有限，在冥想过程中往往难以有效识别并脱离心理过程，这可能会削弱冥想的益处。我们研究了个性化高精度神经反馈（NF）是否能改善冥想过程中与心理活动的脱离，并增强冥想效果。在一项单盲、对照、纵向研究范式中，40名冥想新手连续两天接受冥想训练，期间通过7特斯拉功能磁共振成像测量他们自己（N = 20）或匹配参与者（N = 20；对照组）的后扣带回皮质（PCC）活动，并给予间歇性视觉反馈。在训练过程中，实验组显示PCC与背外侧前额叶皮质之间的功能去耦更强，这表明在冥想过程中对脱离心理过程的控制更好。这使得在为期一周的现实生活自我引导冥想中，情绪幸福感和对心理过程的正念意识有了更大改善。我们提供了有力证据，支持高精度NF引导的冥想训练对优化现实生活中的冥想练习以促进幸福感的效用。
