Meditation changes Gene Expression

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Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains the mind to enter self-consciousness, either to realize some benefits or as an end in itself. Some of the earliest references to meditation are found in the Hindu Vedas. With evidence growing that meditation can have beneficial health effects, scientists have sought to understand how these practices physically affect the body. 

A study by researchers in Wisconsin, Spain, and France, believed to be first of this kind, investigated the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness practice in a group of experienced meditators, compared to a group of untrained control subjects who engaged in quiet, non-meditative activities. After eight hours of mindfulness practice, the meditators showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation. 

"Most interestingly, the changes were observed in genes that are the current targets of anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs," says Perla Kaliman, first author of the article and a researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona, Spain (IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS) where the molecular analyses were conducted. The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. 

Mindfulness-based trainings have shown beneficial effects on inflammatory disorders in prior clinical studies. The new results provide a possible biological mechanism for therapeutic effects. The results show a down-regulation of genes that have been implicated in inflammation. The affected genes include the pro-inflammatory genes RIPK2 and COX2 as well as several histone deacetylase (HDAC) genes, which regulate the activity of other genes epigenetically (that is, through changes in inherited gene function that do not involve changes in DNA sequence; epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity which are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence) by removing a type of chemical tag. 

Gene is the fundamental physical and functional unit that contains the inherited information that is found in the DNA. Genes are actually a subset of a cell's DNA. DNA is the material inside the nucleus of cells that carries genetic information. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the researchers say, there was no difference in the tested genes between the two groups of people at the start of the study. The observed effects were seen only in the meditators following mindfulness practice. In addition, several other DNA-modifying genes showed no differences between groups, suggesting that the mindfulness practice specifically affected certain regulatory pathways. 

However, it is important to note that the study was not designed to distinguish any effects of long-term meditation training from those of a single day of practice. Instead, the key result is that meditators experienced genetic changes following mindfulness practice that were not seen in the non-meditating group after other quiet activities -- an outcome providing proof of principle that mindfulness practice can lead to epigenetic alterations of the genome. 

"Our genes are quite dynamic in their expression and these results suggest that the calmness of our mind can actually have a potential influence on their expression," says study author Richard J. Davidson Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The regulation of HDACs and inflammatory pathways may represent some of the mechanisms underlying the therapeutic potential of meditation-based interventions," Kaliman says. "Our findings set the foundation for future studies to further assess meditation strategies for the treatment of chronic inflammatory conditions." 

 Adapted from University of Wisconsin-Madison News article, “Study reveals gene expression changes with meditation” © 2013