Epigenetic Changes Associated With Two Different Conceptualisations of Meditation- A Randomised Trial

Abstract

Meditation and its related practices have become increasingly popular over the past 10 years, especially in Western society. As a result, the scientific community has focused its efforts on determining whether meditation exerts a physiological effect that is beyond that of a placebo and the exact mechanisms by which this may occur. The relatively new-found affordability and availability of gene array technologies have provided researchers with a quick method of determining gene expression changes associated with meditation. Gene expression changes provide preliminary insights on the mechanisms by which meditation may exert any specific effects. A literature review of the entire English-speaking database of studies that investigated gene expression changes associated with meditation, although different definitions of meditation were studied, revealed that there were no studies comparing two different definitions of meditation. I took this opportunity to conduct a randomised controlled trial consisting of 50 healthy participants (25 in each treatment arm) and comparing two different definitions of meditation, namely Sahaja yoga (mental silence meditation) and a form of mindfulness known as body scan meditation, with the intention of determining whether there are distinct biological differences between two different definitions of meditation. Also I aimed to determine whether the mental silence approach to meditation could elicit gene expression changes. Blood samples were collected from each participant before and after a 6-week intervention period during which they were asked to attend a 1-hour intensive meditation class per week and practice for 15 minutes twice a day at home. RNA was then extracted from the whole blood using the Tempus Spin RNA isolation kit and submitted to the Ramaciotti Centre for analysis using the Affymetrix Human Genome U219 array plate. Gene data was checked and analysed using Partek Genomic Suite 6.6 and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the significant gene expression changes. iv The results suggested that mental silence and body scan meditations are able to elicit significant gene expression changes. Categories of genes that had significant changes in expression included immune system/inflammation, cancer and cell structure and function. Furthermore, it was found that mental silence and body scan meditation altered the expression of a vastly different number of genes (16 vs 48 respectively). Comparing the gene functions to the literature also led to the speculation that mental silence was associated with potentially more favourable health effects as compared to the body scan meditation group. In conclusion, it is shown that two different definitions of meditation are able to change the expression of genes in distinct ways and that the mental silence definition of meditation may exert its biological effects by altering the expression of genes related to the immune system/inflammation, cancer and cell structure and function. Owing to the differences in gene expression changes between the two definitions of meditation, both definitions may affect the body differently. Future studies are also proposed with a strong focus on large scaled RCTs comparing different definitions of meditation.