The human brain possesses plenty of functions but little is known about its scientific relationship with mind and spirit. Conferences^1,2^ focused on the connection between science and religion were held very recently in which neuroscientists, Buddhist scholars and Dalai Lama discussed attention, mental imagery, emotion, mind, brain functions and meditation, suggesting religious meditation offers an effective means to investigate the mystery of mind and spirit. In the past decade, scientists struggled to obtain brain mappings for various meditation styles using different brain imaging techniques and stimulating results have been observed^3-17^. In this letter we report that, together with other brain regions, pineal body exhibit significant activation during meditation process, supporting the long lasting speculation that pineal plays an important role in the intrinsic awareness which might concern spirit or soul. Pineal is known as an endocrine organ which produces substrates including melatonin and has been ascribed numerous even mysterious functions but its activation during meditation has never been observed by brain imaging technique. In seventeenth century, based on anatomic observation, Descartes ventured to suggest that pineal serves as the principal seat of the soul^18-20^. Inspired by its geometric center in the brain, physiologists, psychologists, philosophers and religionists have been speculating for centuries about pineal's function relevant to spirit and soul. In this study, we chose Chinese Original Quiet Sitting, one style of meditation, to explore this long lasting speculation by functional magnetic resonance imaging technique. Our results demonstrate a correlation between pineal activation and religious meditation which might have profound implications in physiological understanding of the intrinsic awareness.

In the study of high energy physics, as subatomic particles are in different energy states, a suitable accelerator is needed to explore information inside the atom at deeper and deeper levels. Particularly, there are different neural energy patterns or neuro-quantum states within the brain associated with meditative practices; to find out certain information inside the body, it is necessary to reach a meditative state having increased energy levels. Here we report that Chinese Original Quiet Sitting (COQS)-one style of Chinese Daoist meditation-exhibits noticeable results about different neural energy levels or quantum types using functional magnetic resonance imaging technique. Two different states within COQS were examined. Firstly, a prolonged rest-like meditative state, maintaining a relatively low energy level and showing both activation and deactivation of certain brain regions, was observed. Secondly, a higher energy state was found, showing different pattern with only positive activation of certain brain regions. In particular, it appears that there is a correlation between pineal activation and this high energy meditation practice. Also, the pineal body seems concerning with the "upper elixir field" which is an important region in Daoist meditation. Our results provide new evidence for a seldom studied aspect of human physiological performance which has life science implications. Also, a multidimensional quantum model of brain activity is established to offer a scientific description more properly.

Since different meditations may activate different regions in brain, we can use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate it. Chinese original quiet sitting is mainly one kind of traditional Chinese meditation. It contains two different parts: a short period of keeping phrase and intake spiritual energy, and a long period of relaxation with no further action. In this paper, both those two stages were studied by fMRI. We performed two different paradigms and found the accurate positions in the brain. The pineal gland and the hypothalamus showed positive activation during the first and second stages of this meditation. The BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent) signal changes had also been found.

There exist many different types of meditation. The mechanism why meditation improves people's health remains unclear. Since different meditations may activate different regions in brain, we can use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate it. We may simply divide meditation into two different types, which is forced meditation (FM) and non-forced meditation (NFM). The FM type may keep a phrase in mind, observe breathing, proceed mind imaging or any other actions to keep people's attention focused. Chinese original quiet sitting (COQS) is mainly one kind of traditional Chinese meditation. It contains two different parts: a short period of keeping phrase and receiving spiritual energy, and a long period of relaxation with no further action. The second part of it is really what we called "non-forced" type, whereas the first part is normally a forced one. In this paper, we want to find out the brain activation area precisely during FM and NFM. We studied the observing breathing meditation (OBM) and the first part of COQS as the FM type, and also studied the second part of COQS as NFM type. Our experimental results showed very different activation patterns among the brain between FM and NFM. The BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent) signal changes had also been found. The posterior cingulated gyrus showed strong activation in OBM, the pineal gland and hypothalamus showed positive activation in the first and second stage of COQS separately. From our results, we found the basic meaning of the mechanism why meditation improves people's health.

The phenomenon of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) had been studied since 1733. Most researches were focused on the heart rates or blood pressure variability. It was well known that heart rate variability (HRV) induced by respiration decreased progressively with age. In general, it is caused by the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Seldom researches studied the relationship of this phenomenon with cerebral circulation. In our previous research, we found that different breathing rate could redistribute the proportion of systemic circulation, and also observed that the slower the breathing rate the more proportion of cerebral circulation appeared on head. In this paper, we further examined the BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent) signal fluctuations in brain stem among different breathing rate by the technique of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that the BOLD signal changes were hinged on the breathing rate, and the variability was consistent with the pulsatile pressure study.

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The phenomenon of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) had been studied since 1733. Most researches were focused on the heart rates or blood pressure variability. It was well known that heart rate variability (HRV) induced by respiration decreased progressively with age. In general, it is caused by the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Seldom researches studied the relationship of this phenomenon with cerebral circulation. In our previous research, we found that different breathing rate could redistribute the proportion of systemic circulation, and also observed that the slower the breathing rate the more proportion of cerebral circulation appeared on head. In this paper, we further examined the BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent) signal fluctuations in brain stem among different breathing rate by the technique of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that the BOLD signal changes were hinged on the breathing rate, and the variability was consistent with the pulsatile pressure study.