http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1196/annals.1393.002/abstract

http://www.hspholistic.de/documents/Influenceofbrain-derivedneurotrophicfactorandcatecholO-methyltransferasepolymorphismsoneffec.pdf

Thank you for the response. I’ve seen both, Xiong and Doraiswamy only suggest that meditation may promote neuroplasticity by “potentially” raising BDNF levels, and the Jung article cites other studies that see increased cortical growth in meditators “suggesting” increased BDNF. 

I should state that I’m currently doing a study looking at BDNF levels in meditators and non meditators so hopefully will have an answer. 

It is not exactly the same, but there is a not trial of Dr. Nedeljkovic showing a decrease in stress response after a Taichi intervention (including saliva cortisol and amylase): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22222120

You might also want to look at the papers of Dr. Michael Irwin of UCLA: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=irwin+m+tai+chi

It may also give some directions....of course, there are many others looking into CAM therapies and associated physiological changes and responses

Hello all,

Just wanted to share an update on some results I got after the trial:

1. A paired samples T-test indicated a statistically significant reduction in cortisol among all participants after meditation (n=14, p = 0.001)

2. Pearson correlation indicates strong positive correlation between BDNF and cortisol before meditation (p=0.29).

3. No statistically significant difference b/w groups baseline BDNF (p = 0.783)

4. No statistically significant difference difference b/w groups baseline cortisol (p = 0.864)

5. No statistically significant difference difference b/w groups BDNF (p = 0.661) or cortisol (p = 0.904) post meditation

6. No statistically significant difference difference b/w groups pre to post meditation Lumosity scores for all 3 games (p = 0.380), (p = 0.138), (p = 0.613)

There you go. Some interesting finds. While there were no significant differences between the Lumosity scores after meditation the non-meditators did have some interesting post meditation scores. Possible indicating that the non-meditators may respond better to the task of meditation and could have had other factors playing into their scores whereas the experienced meditators could have been "conditioned" to the meditation.