Mindfulness meditators show enhanced working memory performance concurrent with different brain region engagement patterns during recall
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Mindfulness meditation has been shown to improve working memory (WM). However, the altered brain activity underpinning these improvements is underexplored. In non-meditating individuals, modulation of theta and alpha oscillations and 1/f aperiodic activity during WM has been found to be related to WM performance. Resting theta and alpha oscillations have been found to differ in meditators, but WM related oscillation changes and 1/f aperiodic activity have not yet been examined. Additionally, WM event-related-potentials (ERPs) are modulated by attention, which is also enhanced by meditation, so these neural measures are candidates for exploring neural activity underpinning WM improvement in meditators. We recorded EEG from 29 controls and 29 meditators during a modified Sternberg WM task and compared theta, alpha, and 1/f aperiodic activity during the WM delay, and ERPs time-locked to the WM probe. Meditators responded more accurately (p = 0.008, Cohen’s d = 0.688). Meditators also showed different ERP distributions with earlier left-temporal activation and more frontal distribution of activity (FDR-p = 0.0186, η 2 = 0.0903), as well as a reduction in overall neural response strength (FDR-p = 0.0098, η 2 = 0.1251). While a higher proportion of meditators showed theta oscillations during the WM delay, no other differences in theta, alpha or 1/f aperiodic activity were present. These results suggest that increased WM performance in meditators might not be the result of higher amplitudes of typical WM activity, but instead due to an alternative neural strategy during WM decision making, which may allow more accurate responses with less neural activation. Highlights - Long term mindfulness meditators showed improved working memory (WM) accuracy - This was concurrent with earlier left temporal activation following probe stimuli - As well as a more frontal distribution and reduced overall neural response strength - No oscillation differences were present in the working memory delay period - Improved WM from altered neural strategy rather than increased neural activity
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".