Ugo Vercelli | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2015

Can mindfulness meditation alter consciousness? An integrative interpretation

Mindfulness meditation has been practiced in the East for more than two millennia, but in last years also Western neurscientists drown their attention to it. Mindfulness basically refers to moment to moment awareness. In this review we summarize different hypotheses concerning effects of mindfulness meditation practice and cerebral correlates accounting for these; furthermore we expose some of the most relevant theories dealing with different aspects of consciousness. Finally we propose an integration of mindfulness meditation with consciousness, supported by the identification of brain areas involved in both of them, namely Anterior Cingular Cortex (ACC), Posterior Cingular Cortex (PCC), Insula and Thalamus.

Neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2014

NODE DETECTION USING HIGH-DIMENSIONAL FUZZY PARCELLATION APPLIED TO THE INSULAR CORTEX

Several functional connectivity approaches require the definition of a set of ROIs that act as network nodes. Different methods have been developed to define these nodes and to derive their functional and effective connections, most of which are rather complex. Here we aim to propose a relatively simple \"one-step\" border detection and ROI estimation procedure employing the fuzzy c-mean clustering algorithm.\n\nTo test this procedure and to explore insular connectivity beyond the two/three-region model currently proposed in the literature, we parcellated the insular cortex of a group of twenty healthy right-handed volunteers (10 females) scanned in a resting state condition.\n\nEmploying a high-dimensional functional connectivity-based clustering process, we confirmed the two patterns of connectivity previously described. This method revealed a complex pattern of functional connectivity where the two previously detected insular clusters are subdivided into several other networks, some of which not commonly associated with the insular cortex, such as the default mode network and parts of the dorsal attentional network. Finally, the detection of nodes was reliable as demonstrated by the confirmative analysis performed on a replication group of subjects.

Neuroscience↗