Effect on specific brain areas determined by of meditation, using a 7T MRI

• Grant number: 22/13530-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: November 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Medical Radiology
• Principal Investigator: Paula Ricci Arantes
• Grantee: Carolina Negri Ferrara
• Host Institution: Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da USP (HCFMUSP). Secretaria da Saúde (São Paulo - Estado). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

SUMMARY1. IntroductionIn a context of an increasing anxiety and depression number, meditation appears as a mitigating factor, as a tool for mental and physical health. Investigating the neurological basis inherent to this practice can help to understand its action and the difference between the meditation types. The meditation focused on in this study is the meditation of the "Essence of Being", from the 3rd phase of meditation research. Magnetic Resonance Imaging is one of the most accurate methods for investigating neural substrates and our proposal is to use an even more accurate 7T equipment, unique in Latin America, with this ultra-high magnetic field.2. Objectives The objective is to compare experienced meditators in the "Essence of Being" and non-meditators, regarding the volume of brain structures.3. MethodsThis is a single-center, observational, cross-sectional and retrospective study, being one of the ramifications of a main project: "Evaluation of the neural substrate related to the meditation technique by visualization focused on the infrabregmatic region". Eleven subjects were selected among the recruited meditators (from the "Instituto Visão Futuro"), and twenty-one subjects volunteers who had never meditated, were selected to match the meditators, by gender, age and education. For the post-processing of the images, Mango (visualization and quality control) and FreeSurfer (processing, segmentation, delimitation of structures of interest and statistical analysis) software will be used. We will assess total brain, cortical and white matter volumes, highlighting cortical group differences and relating them according to brain networks.