Cognitive Skills and DNA Methylation Are Correlating in Healthy and Novice College Students Practicing Preksha Dhyāna Meditation

Authors

Bassam Abomoelak
Ray Prather
Samani U. Pragya
Samani C. Pragya
Neelam D. Mehta, Thomas Jefferson UniversityFollow
Parvin Uddin
Pushya Veeramachaneni
Naina Mehta
Amanda Young
Saumya Kapoor
Devendra Mehta

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-17-2023

Comments

This article is the author's final published version in Brain Sciences, Volume 13, Issue 8, 2023, Article number 1214.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13081214. Copyright © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Abstract

The impact of different meditation protocols on human health is explored at the cognitive and cellular levels. Preksha Dhyana meditation has been observed to seemingly affect the cognitive performance, transcriptome, and methylome of healthy and novice participant practitioners. In this study, we performed correlation analyses to investigate the presence of any relationships in the changes in cognitive performance and DNA methylation in a group of college students practicing Preksha Dhyāna (N = 34). Nine factors of cognitive performance were assessed at baseline and 8 weeks postintervention timepoints in the participants. Statistically significant improvements were observed in six of the nine assessments, which were predominantly relating to memory and affect. Using Illumina 850 K microarray technology, 470 differentially methylated sites (DMS) were identified between the two timepoints (baseline and 8 weeks), using a threshold of p-value < 0.05 and methylation levels beyond −3% to 3% at every site. Correlation analysis between the changes in performance on each of the nine assessments and every DMS unveiled statistically significant positive and negative relationships at several of these sites. The identified DMS were in proximity of essential genes involved in signaling and other important metabolic processes. Interestingly, we identified a set of sites that can be considered as biomarkers for Preksha meditation improvements at the genome level.

Recommended Citation

Abomoelak, Bassam; Prather, Ray; Pragya, Samani U.; Pragya, Samani C.; Mehta, Neelam D.; Uddin, Parvin; Veeramachaneni, Pushya; Mehta, Naina; Young, Amanda; Kapoor, Saumya; and Mehta, Devendra, "Cognitive Skills and DNA Methylation Are Correlating in Healthy and Novice College Students Practicing Preksha Dhyāna Meditation" (2023). Student Papers, Posters & Projects. Paper 115.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/student_papers/115

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Language

English