Table 1.

Demographics

	Healthy controls			Elderly expert meditators
	Whole sample	Elderly controls	Education-matched Aβneg elderly subgroup
Sample size	186	67	31	6
Age mean ± SD (range)	49.1 ± 18.7 (20–85)	64.8 ± 6.4 (55–75)	64.5 ± 6.9 (55–75)	64.8 ± 3.2 (61–70)
Education mean ± SD (range)	13.1 ± 3.2 (7–20)	12.1 ± 3.7* (7–20)	15.1 ± 2.6 (12–20)	16.2 ± 2.7 (12–20)
N females/males	97/89	38/29	20/11	3/3
MMSE mean ± SD (range)	—	29.1 ± 1.0 (26–30)	29.2 ± 1.0 (26–30)	29.5 ± 0.8 (28–30)

Mann-Whitney U-tests and chi2 statistics were performed to compare elderly expert meditators to the elderly control group (*Significant difference from the elderly expert meditators, p < 0.05). MMSE: mini mental state examination. SD: standard deviation.