The Longitudinal Effect of Meditation on Resting-State Functional Connectivity Using Dynamic Arterial Spin Labeling: A Feasibility Study

Figures

• 

  Figure 1. ROIs constructed from the seeds with the MNI coordinates listed: (a) posterior cingulate cortex (PCC, (1, −55, 17) mm); (b) ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC, (0, 51, −7) mm); (c) left and right middle temporal area (LMT, (−45, −69, −2) mm and RMT, (50, −69, −3) mm); (d) left and right frontal eye fields (LFE, (−25, −8, 50) mm and RFE, (27, −8, 50) mm); (e) left superior parietal lobule (LSPL, (−27, −52, 57) mm); (f) right superior parietal lobule (RSPL, (24, −56, 55) mm).

• 

  Figure 2. Increased functional connectivity (a) in the precuneus area (peak-T at 4, −52, 52) with the left visual region seed ROI (LMT) and (b) in the frontal region (peak-T at (10, 26, 46)) with the right frontal eye field seed ROI (RFE). (c) Decreased functional connectivity in the superior temporal area (peak-T at (50, −20, −6)) with the left visual region seed ROI (LMT) after 2-month meditation practice at the thresholds of a voxel-level p-value of 0.005 and corrected cluster-level p-value of 0.05. The color bar shows the range of t-values.

• 

  Figure 3. Functional connectivity between the LMT and precuneus, RFE and frontal, and LMT and temporal regions at baseline and follow-up.

• 

  Figure 4. Regions overlaid on a standard brain template in which the meditation practice time was positively associated with functional connectivity with a seed ROI at the (a) PCC (peak-T −54, 4, −10), (c) vmPFC (peak-T 8, 36, 14) and negatively associated with functional connectivity with a seed ROI at the (b) PCC (peak-T −26, −52, 42), (d) vmPFC (peak-T 36, 34, 18) at the thresholds of a voxel-level p-value of 0.005 and corrected cluster-level p-value of 0.05. The color bar shows the range of t-values.

• 

  Figure 5. Regions overlaid on a standard brain template in which the meditation practice time was positively associated with functional connectivity with a seed ROI at the (a) RMT (peak-T 44, 8, 44), (c) LSPL (peak-T −38, 34, 12), and (e) RFE (peak-T 24, 18, 60), (g) LFE (peak-T 40, −56, 46) and negatively associated with functional connectivity with a seed ROI at the (b) RMT (peak-T 8, −68, 22), (d) LSPL (peak-T −2, −64, 4), and (f) RFE (peak-T 0, 32, 24) at the thresholds of a voxel-level p-value of 0.005 and corrected cluster-level p-value of 0.05. The color bar shows the range of t-values.