The Pilot Study of the Effect of Meditation to the Serum Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) of Medical Students, Srinakharinvirot University

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness meditation is a method to decrease stress and increase memory. So, mindfulness meditation should increase serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of mindfulness meditation on the serum BDNF of medical students.MATERIAL AND METHOD: The study group consisted of 30 male and female second-year medical students that volunteered to participate in the study, aged 19.1 ± 0.55 year olds (range 18-20) from Srinakharinwirot University. Their blood was drawn to measure BDNF before and after a four-day mindfulness meditation programme. The comparison of serum BDNF levels before and after meditation were analysed by paired t-test.RESULTS: The subjects were 66.77%female and 33.33% male. The average serum BDNF level before the meditation was 17.67 ng/ml (SD 3.58). After meditation, there was a decrease in serum BDNF to 17.34 ng/ml, which was however not statistically significant (SD 4.04, p > 0.05).CONCLUSION: The levels of blood BDNF decreases slightly after practising meditation. We plan to investigate the reason in the future.