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ENIGMA-Meditation: Worldwide Consortium for Neuroscientific Investigations of Meditation Practices.

Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging
April 1, 2025
Saampras Ganesan et al. (58 authors)
Journal ArticleReviewHuman Study
Study Details

Study Goal

The researchers aimed to establish a collaborative framework (ENIGMA-Meditation) to improve the generalizability and rigor of neuroscientific investigations into meditation practices and their therapeutic effects.

Results Summary

The abstract highlights that meditation interventions have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders like depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety, but current neuroscientific models lack generalizability due to small, heterogeneous datasets. ENIGMA-Meditation seeks to address these limitations through standardized, large-scale neuroimaging analyses.

Population

Clinical and nonclinical populations (no specific demographic details provided).

Effective Dosage

Not specified

Duration

Not specified

Interactions

None mentioned

Extracted Claims (12)
InterventionDirectionEndpointPopulationDosageImpactClaim #
meditation interventions
decrease
depression
clinical populations
-
have shown therapeutic efficacy
#1
meditation interventions
decrease
pain
clinical populations
-
have shown therapeutic efficacy
#2
meditation interventions
decrease
addiction
clinical populations
-
have shown therapeutic efficacy
#3
meditation interventions
decrease
anxiety
clinical populations
-
have shown therapeutic efficacy
#4
meditation practices
neutral
psychological processes
-
-
can modulate
#5
meditation practices
neutral
awareness
-
-
can modulate
#6
meditation practices
neutral
mental states
-
-
can modulate
#7
ENIGMA-Meditation consortium
neutral
neuroscientific investigations of meditation
-
-
will enable systematic meta- and mega-analyses
#8
ENIGMA-Meditation consortium
increase
statistical power
-
-
will improve
#9
ENIGMA-Meditation consortium
increase
generalizability
-
-
will improve
#10
ENIGMA-Meditation consortium
neutral
therapeutic action of meditation practices
-
-
will inform neuroscientific mechanisms
#11
ENIGMA-Meditation consortium
neutral
field of meditation and contemplative neuroscience
-
-
will advance
#12
Abstract

Meditation is a family of ancient and contemporary contemplative mind-body practices that can modulate psychological processes, awareness, and mental states. Over the last 40 years, clinical science has manualized meditation practices and designed various meditation interventions that have shown therapeutic efficacy for disorders including depression, pain, addiction, and anxiety. Over the past decade, neuroimaging has been used to examine the neuroscientific basis of meditation practices, effects, states, and outcomes for clinical and nonclinical populations. However, the generalizability and replicability of current neuroscientific models of meditation have not yet been established, because they are largely based on small datasets entrenched with heterogeneity along several domains of meditation (e.g., practice types, meditation experience, clinical disorder targeted), experimental design, and neuroimaging methods (e.g., preprocessing, analysis, task-based, resting-state, structural magnetic resonance imaging). These limitations have precluded a nuanced and rigorous neuroscientific phenotyping of meditation practices and their potential benefits. Here, we present ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta Analysis)-Meditation, the first worldwide collaborative consortium for neuroscientific investigations of meditation practices. ENIGMA-Meditation will enable systematic meta- and mega-analyses of globally distributed neuroimaging datasets of meditation using shared, standardized neuroimaging methods and tools to improve statistical power and generalizability. Through this powerful collaborative framework, existing neuroscientific accounts of meditation practices can be extended to generate novel and rigorous neuroscientific insights that account for multidomain heterogeneity. ENIGMA-Meditation will inform neuroscientific mechanisms that underlie therapeutic action of meditation practices on psychological and cognitive attributes, thereby advancing the field of meditation and contemplative neuroscience.

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
HumansMeditationBrainNeuroimaging
Study Links
Quality Scores
SafetyNot Assessed
Efficacy75/10
Quality85/10
Citation Metrics
Total Citations2
Citations/Year2.0
Research Impact Scores
APT Score0.05
Weight Score3.00
Normalized Score0.67
Related Supplements
ENIGMA-Meditation: Worldwide Consortium for Neuroscientific ... | Panacea Index