Cognitive Aging and Long-Term Maintenance of Attentional Improvements Following Meditation Training
Anthony Paul Zanesco, Brandon King, Katherine Maclean, Clifford Saron
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractIntensive meditation training over three months improved sustained attention and response inhibition, and these gains were partially maintained up to seven years later. Continued meditation practice during the follow-up period moderated age-related declines in response inhibition accuracy and reaction time variability. The findings suggest that dedicated mental training can produce lasting benefits for cognitive health and alter long-term cognitive trajectories as people age.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort with longitudinal follow-up |
|---|---|
| Intervention | Meditation |
| Duration | 3 months of full-time meditation training, with follow-up assessments up to 7 years after training |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Intensive meditation training Dedicated mental practice Meditation program Continued meditation practice Ongoing mental training |
| Citations | 6 |
| Key finding | Intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across the lifespan. |
Abstract
Sustained attention is effortful, demanding, and subject to limitations associated with age-related cognitive decline. Researchers have sought to examine whether attentional capacities can be enhanced through directed mental training, with a number of studies now offering evidence that meditation practice may facilitate generalized improvements in this domain. However, the extent to which attentional gains are maintained following periods of dedicated meditation training and how such improvements are moderated by processes of aging have yet to be characterized. In a prior report (Sahdra et al., Emotion 11, 299–312, 2011), we examined attentional performance on a sustained response inhibition task before, during, and after 3-months of full-time meditation. We now extend this prior investigation across additional follow-up assessments occurring up to 7 years after the conclusion of training. Performance improvements observed during periods of intensive practice were partially maintained several years later. Importantly, aging-related decrements in measures of response inhibition accuracy and reaction time variability were moderated by levels of continued meditation practice across the follow-up period. The present study is the first to offer evidence that intensive and continued meditation practice is associated with enduring improvements in sustained attention and response inhibition, with the potential to alter longitudinal trajectories of cognitive change across the lifespan.