Focused attention meditation changes the boundary and configuration of functional networks in the brain.

Research has shown that focused attention meditation not only improves our cognitive and motivational functioning (e.g., attention, mental health), it influences the way our brain networks [e.g., default mode network (DMN), fronto-parietal network (FPN), and sensory-motor network (SMN)] function and operate. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the possibility that meditation alters the architecture (composition) of these functional brain networks. Here, using a single-case experimental design with intensive longitudinal data, we examined the effect of mediation practice on intra-individual changes in the composition of whole-brain networks. The results showed that meditation (1) changed the community size (with a number of regions in the FPN being merged into the DMN after meditation) and (2) led to instability in the community allegiance of the regions in the FPN. These results suggest that, in addition to altering specific functional connectivity, meditation leads to reconfiguration of whole-brain network architecture. The reconfiguration of community architecture in the brain provides fruitful information about the neural mechanisms of meditation.

Shared striatal activity in decisions to satisfy curiosity and hunger at the risk of electric shocks.

Curiosity is often portrayed as a desirable feature of human faculty. However, curiosity may come at a cost that sometimes puts people in harmful situations. Here, using a set of behavioural and neuroimaging experiments with stimuli that strongly trigger curiosity (for example, magic tricks), we examine the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the motivational effect of curiosity. We consistently demonstrate that across different samples, people are indeed willing to gamble, subjecting themselves to electric shocks to satisfy their curiosity for trivial knowledge that carries no apparent instrumental value. Also, this influence of curiosity shares common neural mechanisms with that of hunger for food. In particular, we show that acceptance (compared to rejection) of curiosity-driven or incentive-driven gambles is accompanied by enhanced activity in the ventral striatum when curiosity or hunger was elicited, which extends into the dorsal striatum when participants made a decision.