Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation: fMRI and EEG Evidence of Self-Stimulating a Reward System

Abstract

We report the first neural recording during ecstatic meditations called jhanas and test whether a brain reward system plays a role in the joy reported. Jhanas are Altered States of Consciousness (ASC) that imply major brain changes based on subjective reports: (1) external awareness dims, (2) internal verbalizations fade, (3) the sense of personal boundaries is altered, (4) attention is highly focused on the object of meditation, and (5) joy increases to high levels. The fMRI and EEG results from an experienced meditator show changes in brain activity in 11 regions shown to be associated with the subjective reports, and these changes occur promptly after jhana is entered. In particular, the extreme joy is associated not only with activation of cortical processes but also with activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the dopamine/opioid reward system. We test three mechanisms by which the subject might stimulate his own reward system by external means and reject all three. Taken together, these results demonstrate an apparently novel method of self-stimulating a brain reward system using only internal mental processes in a highly trained subject.

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“…Thus, if discursive thoughts related to self and future plans have begun to be replaced by concentration on, for example, the breath, then this would predict, as mentioned by Alcorta,Religion,Brain & Behavior 253 increases in activity in interoceptive areas, such as the insula, with concomitant decreases in the default mode network. In addition, even if full Samadhi is reached, as it was, apparently, by the subject used in a recent study mentioned above (Hagerty et al, 2013), there would still, presumably, be some brain regions with higher activity levels than others, many of which would be different from those during the selected baseline condition. Perhaps the overall pattern would depend on static biological variables related to relative vascularization and vegetative state maintenance.…”

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“…In addition, even if full Samadhi is reached, as it was, apparently, by the subject used in a recent study mentioned above (Hagerty et al, 2013), there would still, presumably, be some brain regions with higher activity levels than others, many of which would be different from those during the selected baseline condition. Perhaps the overall pattern would depend on static biological variables related to relative vascularization and vegetative state maintenance.…”