Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation

TLDR

The biological mechanisms underlying meditation’s reported mental and physical health benefits remain largely unexplored. This randomized controlled study examined the effects of an 8‑week workplace mindfulness training on brain and immune function in healthy employees. Twenty‑five meditators and a 16‑person wait‑list control group had EEG recorded before, immediately after, and four months after the program, and all received influenza vaccination at the program’s conclusion. Meditators exhibited greater left‑sided anterior EEG activation and higher influenza antibody titers than controls, with the activation increase predicting antibody rise, demonstrating that a short mindfulness program can enhance both brain activity and immune response.

Abstract

The underlying changes in biological processes that are associated with reported changes in mental and physical health in response to meditation have not been systematically explored. We performed a randomized, controlled study on the effects on brain and immune function of a well-known and widely used 8-week clinical training program in mindfulness meditation applied in a work environment with healthy employees.We measured brain electrical activity before and immediately after, and then 4 months after an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Twenty-five subjects were tested in the meditation group. A wait-list control group (N = 16) was tested at the same points in time as the meditators. At the end of the 8-week period, subjects in both groups were vaccinated with influenza vaccine.We report for the first time significant increases in left-sided anterior activation, a pattern previously associated with positive affect, in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators. We also found significant increases in antibody titers to influenza vaccine among subjects in the meditation compared with those in the wait-list control group. Finally, the magnitude of increase in left-sided activation predicted the magnitude of antibody titer rise to the vaccine.These findings demonstrate that a short program in mindfulness meditation produces demonstrable effects on brain and immune function. These findings suggest that meditation may change brain and immune function in positive ways and underscore the need for additional research.