Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39903119›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025

Intracranial substrates of meditation-induced neuromodulation in the amygdala and hippocampus.

Christina Maher, Lea Tortolero, Soyeon Jun, Daniel D Cummins, Adam Saad, James Young, Lizbeth Nunez Martinez, Zachary Schulman, Lara Marcuse, Allison Waters and 4 more

Erratum issuedAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

14 authors.

Christina MaherNash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0009-0003-8188-2083
Lea TortoleroDepartment of Neurosurgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.
Soyeon JunNash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0001-6134-223X
Daniel D CumminsDepartment of Neurosurgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0003-2742-5669
Adam SaadDepartment of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0002-9792-8969
James YoungDepartment of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.
Lizbeth Nunez MartinezNash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.
Zachary SchulmanDepartment of Neurosurgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0002-0720-460X
Lara MarcuseDepartment of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.
Allison WatersNash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0002-6374-3712
Helen S MaybergNash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0002-1672-2716
Richard J DavidsonDepartments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706.ORCID 0000-0002-8506-4964
Fedor PanovDepartment of Neurosurgery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.
Ignacio SaezNash Family Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029.ORCID 0000-0003-0651-2069

Funding

The plasticity of well-being: A research network to define, measure and promote human flourishingU24AT011289 · NCCIH · UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON · PI DAVIDSON, RICHARD J · 2021 to 2024
$2.4M
Nash Family Research Scholars Award NANCCIH NIH HHS U24 AT011289
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Meditation is an accessible mental practice associated with emotional regulation and well-being. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), a specific subtype of meditative practice, involves focusing one's attention on thoughts of well-being for oneself and others. Meditation has been proven to be beneficial in a variety of settings, including therapeutic applications, but the neural activity underlying meditative practices and their positive effects are not well understood. It has been difficult to understand the contribution of deep limbic structures given the difficulty of studying neural activity directly in the human brain. Here, we leverage a unique patient population, epilepsy patients chronically implanted with responsive neurostimulation devices that allow chronic, invasive electrophysiology recording to investigate the physiological correlates of LKM in the amygdala and hippocampus of novice meditators. We find that LKM-associated changes in physiological activity were specific to periodic, but not aperiodic, features of neural activity. LKM was associated with an increase in γ (30 to 55 Hz) power and an alternation in the duration of β (13 to 30 Hz) and γ oscillatory bursts in both the amygdala and hippocampus, two regions associated with mood disorders. These findings reveal the nature of LKM-induced modulation of limbic activity in first-time meditators.

Indexed as

AmygdalaHippocampusMeditationAdultEpilepsyFemaleHumansMaleMiddle Agedamygdalahippocampusintracranial electrophysiologyloving-kindness meditation

Identifiers

PMID39903119
PMCPMC11831176

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.