1. Greater Cortical Thickness in Elderly Female Yoga Practitioners—A Cross-Sectional Study
- Author
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Rui F. Afonso, Joana B. Balardin, Sara Lazar, João R. Sato, Nadja Igarashi, Danilo F. Santaella, Shirley S. Lacerda, Edson Amaro Jr., and Elisa H. Kozasa
- Subjects
Aging ,medicine.medical_specialty ,meditation ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,bepress|Medicine and Health Sciences|Other Medicine and Health Sciences ,MindRxiv|Medicine and Health Sciences|Other Medicine and Health Sciences ,050105 experimental psychology ,lcsh:RC321-571 ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Physical medicine and rehabilitation ,Hatha yoga ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,medicine ,Middle frontal gyrus ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Meditation ,Other Medicine and Health Sciences ,Psychiatry ,Prefrontal cortex ,lcsh:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Original Research ,media_common ,prefrontal cortex ,05 social sciences ,MindRxiv|Medicine and Health Sciences ,Cognition ,bepress|Medicine and Health Sciences ,cortical thickness ,Executive functions ,humanities ,Physical activity level ,yoga ,Superior frontal gyrus ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Neuroscience ,MRI - Abstract
Yoga, a mind-body activity that requires attentional engagement, has been associated with positive changes in brain structure and function, especially in areas related to awareness, attention, executive functions and memory. Normal aging, on the other hand, has also been associated with structural and functional brain changes, but these generally involve decreased cognitive functions. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to compare brain cortical thickness in elderly yoga practitioners and a group of age-matched healthy non-practitioners. We tested 21 older women who had practiced hatha yoga for at least eight years and 21 women naive to yoga, meditation or any mind-body interventions who were matched to the first group in age, years of formal education and physical activity level. A T1-weighted MPRAGE sequence was acquired for each participant. Yoga practitioners showed significantly greater cortical thickness in a left prefrontal lobe cluster, which included portions of the lateral middle frontal gyrus, anterior superior frontal gyrus and dorsal superior frontal gyrus. We found greater cortical thickness in the left prefrontal cortex of healthy elderly women who trained yoga for a minimum of eight years compared with women in the control group.
- Published
- 2017
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