Imaging Cerebral and Sub-cerebral Correlates of Meditative States (calm)

Boston University

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Stress

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01262404

AT005728-01 (Other Grant/Funding Number)

BU-Emory-01

Details and patient eligibility

About

Three groups of subjects are trained to practice mindfulness meditation, compassion meditation, or attend a health training control class. Individuals from each group will undergo structural and functional brain imaging before and after training. The hypothesis is that the compassion meditation group will show the largest changes in brain structure and function. In a second series of experiments, the subjects practicing a Tibetan meditation practice will be undergo MRI thermometry imaging to construct detailed three dimensional temperature maps of their bodies before, during, and after they perform this practice.

Full description

Structural (MRI) Imaging will be used to measure changes in cortical thickness in the pre and post training groups. Function (fMRI) Imaging will be used to measure changes in cortical and sub-cortical responses to a series of affectively controlled visual images, presented during scanning. MRI Thermometry Imaging will be used to construct three dimensional temperature maps of subjects while performing meditation in the scanner.

Enrollment: 58 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Age 18-65 for the mindfulness-compassion study
• Prior training in gtummo meditation for the gtummo study

Exclusion criteria

• Previous experience with meditation for the mindfulness-compassion study

Trial design

58 participants in 1 patient group

HealthEd,Minfdulness,Compassion

Description:

HealthEd receives training health education. Mindfulness receives training in mindfulness meditation. Compassion receives training in compassion meditation.