Jung and Kuṅḋalini

Coward, Harold

doi:10.1111/j.1465-5922.1985.t01-1-00379.x

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…No other meditation technique or practice has shown such a large statistical difference in GMV at the whole brain. One of the assumptions of SYM is the spontaneous (Sahaja = spontaneous) awakening of the Kundalini energy [72] during the meditation which allows the practitioners to perceive the achievement of yoga (yoga = union) and the state of mental silence, which meditators subjectively perceive as a cool breeze when they put their hands some centimetres above of their head. It is possible that this experience, which is specific to SYM, may be related to the enlargement of VBM and this needs to be further tested.…”

Section: Discussion Of the Vbm Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A detailed area by area comparison

et al. 2020

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Objectives Our previous study showed that long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) had around 7% larger grey matter volume (GMV) in the whole brain compared with healthy controls; however, when testing individual regions, only 5 small brain areas were statistically different between groups. Under the hypothesis that those results were statistically conservative, with the same dataset, we investigated in more detail the regional differences in GMV associated with the practice of SYM, with a different statistical approach. Design Twenty-three experienced practitioners of SYM and 23 healthy non-meditators matched on age, sex and education level, were scanned using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Their GMV were extracted and compared using Voxel-Based Morphometry (VBM). Using a novel ad-hoc general linear model, statistical comparisons were made to observe if the GMV differences between meditators and controls were statistically significant. Results In the 16 lobe area subdivisions, GMV was statistically significantly different in 4 out of 16 areas: in right hemispheric temporal and frontal lobes, left frontal lobe and brainstem. In the 116 AAL area subdivisions, GMV difference was statistically significant in 11 areas. The GMV differences were statistically more significant in right hemispheric brain areas. Conclusions The study shows that long-term practice of SYM is associated with larger GMV overall, and with significant differences mainly in temporal and frontal areas of the right hemisphere and the brainstem. These neuroplastic changes may reflect emotional and attentional control mechanisms developed with SYM. On the other hand, our statistical ad-hoc method shows that there were more brain areas with statistical significance compared to the traditional methodology which we think is susceptible to conservative Type II errors.

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Section: Discussion Of the Vbm Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A detailed area by area comparison

et al. 2020

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“…Importantly, a common goal between SYM and these other meditation techniques is to keep the attention in the here and now at the present moment, detecting and correcting mind-wandering episodes. However, while some of these other meditation techniques have, as a key attentional focus, their own breathing ( Hasenkamp and Barsalou, 2012 ), SYM is based on the spontaneous (Sahaja = spontaneous) awakening of the Kundalini energy ( Coward, 1985 ), which meditators subjectively perceive as a cool breeze when they put their hands some centimeters above their head, which is associated with the achievement of yoga (yoga = union; Devi, 1997 ; Hendriks, 2018 ; Hernández et al, 2020 ). The “kundalini awakening” is suggested to allow the practitioners to perceive the state of their “subtle centers” called chakras that SYM practitioners mention that they perceive through “reflex points” that the chakras have in their hands ( Devi, 1997 ; Morgan, 1999 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resting State Functional Connectivity Associated With Sahaja Yoga Meditation

Barrós‐Loscertales

Hernández

Xiao

et al. 2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Neuroscience research has shown that meditation practices have effects on brain structure and function. However, few studies have combined information on the effects on structure and function in the same sample. Long-term daily meditation practice produces repeated activity of specific brain networks over years of practice, which may induce lasting structural and functional connectivity (FC) changes within relevant circuits. The aim of our study was therefore to identify differences in FC during the resting state between 23 Sahaja Yoga Meditation experts and 23 healthy participants without meditation experience. Seed-based FC analysis was performed departing from voxels that had shown structural differences between these same participants. The contrast of connectivity maps yielded that meditators showed increased FC between the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex but reduced FC between the left insula and the bilateral mid-cingulate as well as between the right angular gyrus and the bilateral precuneus/cuneus cortices. It thus appears that long-term meditation practice increases direct FC between ventral and dorsal frontal regions within brain networks related to attention and cognitive control and decreases FC between regions of these networks and areas of the default mode network.

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“…No other meditation technique or practice has shown such a large statistical difference in GMV at the whole brain. One of the assumptions of SYM is the spontaneous (Sahaja = spontaneous) awakening of the Kundalini energy [62] during the meditation which allows the practitioners to perceive the achievement of yoga (yoga=union) and the state of mental silence, which is felt like a cool breeze of energy on top of the head. It is possible that this experience, which is specific to SYM, may be related to the enlargement of VBM and this needs to be further tested.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increases in whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: a detailed area by area description

Suero²,

Barrós‐Loscertales

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Objectives: Our previous study showed that long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) had around 7% larger grey matter volume (GMV) in the whole brain compared with healthy controls; however, when testing individual regions, only 5 small brain areas were statistically different between groups. Under the hypothesis that those results were statistically conservative, with the same dataset, we investigated in more detail the regional differences in GMV associated with the practice of SYM, with a different statistical approach. Design: Twenty-three experienced practitioners of SYM and 23 healthy non-meditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Their GMV were extracted and compared using Voxel-Based Morphometry. Using a novel ad-hoc GLM model, statistical comparisons were made to observe if the GMV differences between meditators and controls were statistically significant. Results: In the 16 lobe area subdivisions, GMV was statistically significantly different in 4 out of 16 areas: Right hemispheric temporal and frontal lobes, left frontal lobe and brainstem. In the 116 AAL area subdivisions, GMV difference was statistically significant in 11 areas. The GMV differences were statistically more significant in right hemispheric brain areas. Conclusions: The study shows that long-term practice of SYM is associated with larger GMV overall, and with significant differences mainly in temporal and frontal areas of the right hemisphere and the brainstem. These neuroplastic changes may reflect emotional and attentional control mechanisms developed with SYM. On the other hand, our statistical ad-hoc method shows that there were more brain areas with statistical significance compared to the traditional methodology which we think is susceptible to conservative Type II errors.

show abstract

Jung and Kuṅḋalini

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A detailed area by area comparison

Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A detailed area by area comparison

Resting State Functional Connectivity Associated With Sahaja Yoga Meditation

Increases in whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: a detailed area by area description

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