ArticleBrain sciences2023
Reduced Age-Related Gray Matter Loss in the Orbitofrontal Cortex in Long-Term Meditators.
Article in Brain sciences, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Mindfulness Practice and Increases in Gray Matter Density, Gray Matter Volume, and Cortical Thickness: A Scoping Review.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Article
- Toward a Unified Model of Advanced Meditation, Human Development, Meditation Maps, and Transtradition Metaphors: Facing Impermanence, Suffering, and Death.Mindfulness · 2025Article
- Neural correlates of breath work, mental imagery of yoga postures, and meditation in yoga practitioners: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a functionally heterogeneous brain region contributing to mental processes relating to meditation practices. The OFC has been reported to decline in volume with increasing age and differs in volume between meditation practitioners and non-practitioners. We hypothesized that the age-related decline of the OFC is diminished in meditation practitioners. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 50 long-term meditators and 50 matched controls by correlating chronological age with regional gray matter volumes of the left and right OFC, as well as in seven left and right cytoarchitectonically defined subregions of the OFC (Fo1-Fo7). In both meditators and controls, we observed a negative relationship between age and OFC (sub)volumes, indicating that older participants have smaller OFC volumes. However, in meditators, the age-related decline was less steep compared to controls. These age-related differences reached significance for left and right Fo2, Fo3, Fo4, and Fo7, as well as left Fo5 and right Fo6. Since different subregions of the OFC are associated with distinct brain functions, further investigations are required to explore the functional implications of these findings in the context of meditation and the aging brain.
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