Absence of structural brain changes from mindfulness-based stress reduction: Two combined randomized controlled trials
Tammi Kral and colleagues noted that many widely cited studies claim the eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course changes brain structure, but that those studies have significant methodological limitations. They combined two three-arm randomised controlled trials of meditation-naive adults, assigned after a baseline scan to a waitlist control, the course or a matched active control, and measured grey-matter volume, grey-matter density and cortical thickness before and after. They did not replicate the earlier findings and found no evidence that the course produced structural changes compared with either control group, across the whole brain or in regions drawn from earlier mindfulness research.
Tammi Kral and colleagues noted that many widely cited studies claim the eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course changes brain structure, but that those studies have significant methodological limitations. They combined two three-arm randomised controlled trials of meditation-naive adults, assigned after a baseline scan to a waitlist control, the course or a matched active control, and measured grey-matter volume, grey-matter density and cortical thickness before and after. They did not replicate the earlier findings and found no evidence that the course produced structural changes compared with either control group, across the whole brain or in regions drawn from earlier mindfulness research.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-26 via Europe PMC.
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Kral, T. R. A., Davis, K., Korponay, C., Hirshberg, M. J., Hoel, R., Tello, L. Y., Goldman, R. I., Rosenkranz, M. A., Lutz, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2022). Absence of structural brain changes from mindfulness-based stress reduction: Two combined randomized controlled trials. Science Advances, 8(20), eabk3316. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abk3316