Relaxation response induces temporal transcriptome changes in energy metabolism, insulin secretion and inflammatory pathways.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Non-randomized controlled intervention and cross-sectional comparative cohort design
PubMed 23650531 · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062817
What was done
Whole-blood transcriptome profiling was conducted across three time points: prior to, immediately after, and 15 minutes after participants listened to an audio recording (either a relaxation response [RR]-eliciting practice or a health education control CD). The study evaluated two groups: experienced long-term RR practitioners and novice individuals assessed both before and after completing an 8-week RR training program.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values, fold-changes, or exact p-values. It reports that both short-term and long-term practitioners exhibited significant temporal gene expression shifts during an RR session, with more pronounced changes in long-term practitioners compared to novices. RR elicitation upregulated gene expression related to energy metabolism, mitochondrial function, insulin secretion, and telomere maintenance (with mitochondrial ATP synthase and insulin as top upregulated hub genes), while downregulating pathways linked to inflammatory responses and stress (with NF-κB pathway components as top downregulated hubs).
Why it matters
This study identifies rapid, session-dependent gene expression shifts linked to mind-body practices, highlighting mitochondrial resiliency and NF-κB pathway suppression as candidate molecular mechanisms for the health benefits of the relaxation response.
Limits
The abstract omits sample size, participant baseline demographics, specific fold-changes, and significance thresholds. Comparisons between self-selected long-term practitioners and novices introduce potential confounding, and findings are limited to peripheral blood transcriptomic surrogates without direct protein-level or clinical endpoint measurements.
Cited by
- partial Meditation can rapidly induce gene expression changes, altering the expression of around 500 different genes within the first few minutes.