Traditional Buddhist meditations reduce mismatch negativity in experienced monk- practitioners

Медведев, С. В.; Boytsova, J.A.; Bubeev, Yuri; Kaplan, Arline; Kokurina, Elena; Olsen, A.; Smoleevskiy, Alexander; Syrov, Nikolay; Yakovlev, Lev; Zhironkina, Y.S.; Rinpoche, Telo Tulku; Chhonden, Tanzin; Dorje, Yeshi; Lhakpa, Stanzin; Lobsang, Tenzin; Lhundup, Kunga; Norbu, Ngawang; Phuntsok, Lobsang; Sangpo, Lodoe; Sherap, Thupten; Wangchuk, Tenzin

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.08.011

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…We propose here that those descriptions may be an attempt to analogously describe, in human language, certain distributed, self-organized, functional, and dynamic properties of the purely neurophysiological (non-intentional) level as such, which is largely independent from the dynamic kaleidoscope of phenomenological patterns, objects, and states found at the higher levels of OA brain-mind hierarchy [24,25] (for some further relevant discussions, see [51,[113][114][115]) and normally is inaccessible for phenomenal awareness. At least in the meditation that may lead to the tukdam state, it was demonstrated with the assistance of EEG analysis that there is a gradual decrease in the brain responses to the stimuli from the external world accompanied by the progressive withdrawal of phenomenal consciousness [116].…”

Section: Neurophenomenology Of Non- Un- and Sub-consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: Are They Nonconscious, Unconscious, or Subconscious? Expanding the Discussion

Fingelkurts

2023

Brain Sciences

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Unprecedented advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) have given rise to ethical questions about how to recognize and respect autonomy and a sense of agency of the personhood when those capacities are themselves disordered, as they typically are in patients with DoC. At the intersection of these questions rests the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness. Indeed, evaluations of consciousness levels and capacity for recovery have a significant impact on decisions regarding whether to discontinue or prolong life-sustaining therapy for DoC patients. However, in the unconsciousness domain, there is the confusing array of terms that are regularly used interchangeably, making it quite challenging to comprehend what unconsciousness is and how it might be empirically grounded. In this opinion paper, we will provide a brief overview of the state of the field of unconsciousness and show how a rapidly evolving electroencephalogram (EEG) neuroimaging technique may offer empirical, theoretical, and practical tools to approach unconsciousness and to improve our ability to distinguish consciousness from unconsciousness and also nonconsciousness with greater precision, particularly in cases that are borderline (as is typical in patients with DoC). Furthermore, we will provide a clear description of three distant notions of (un)consciousness (unconsciousness, nonconsciousness, and subconsciousness) and discuss how they relate to the experiential selfhood which is essential for comprehending the moral significance of what makes life worth living.

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Section: Neurophenomenology Of Non- Un- and Sub-consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: Are They Nonconscious, Unconscious, or Subconscious? Expanding the Discussion

Fingelkurts

2023

Brain Sciences

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“…This is because the narration of this experience and the terminology used depend on the context and the cultural and experiential background of the meditator. Recently, some studies aimed at reducing this gap by directly collaborating with monastic universities ( Jiang et al, 2020 ; Lott et al, 2020 ; van Vugt et al, 2020 ; Medvedev et al, 2022 ). In this direction, one of the peculiar characteristics of this work, consists in the fact that all the volunteers who participated in the research (monks and Geshe of the Sera Jey Monastery) have the same cultural background and have shared for at least 10 years the life of the monastery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Report from a Tibetan Monastery: EEG neural correlates of concentrative and analytical meditation

Neri,

Callara,

Vanello

et al. 2024

Front. Psychol.

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The positive effects of meditation on human wellbeing are indisputable, ranging from emotion regulation improvement to stress reduction and present-moment awareness enhancement. Changes in brain activity regulate and support these phenomena. However, the heterogeneity of meditation practices and their cultural background, as well as their poor categorization limit the generalization of results to all types of meditation. Here, we took advantage of a collaboration with the very singular and precious community of the Monks and Geshes of the Tibetan University of Sera-Jey in India to study the neural correlates of the two main types of meditation recognized in Tibetan Buddhism, namely concentrative and analytical meditation. Twenty-three meditators with different levels of expertise underwent to an ecological (i.e., within the monastery) EEG acquisition consisting of an analytical and/or concentrative meditation session at “their best,” and with the only constraint of performing a 5-min-long baseline at the beginning of the session. Time-varying power-spectral-density estimates of each session were compared against the baseline (i.e., within session) and between conditions (i.e., analytical vs. concentrative). Our results showed that concentrative meditation elicited more numerous and marked changes in the EEG power compared to analytical meditation, and mainly in the form of an increase in the theta, alpha and beta frequency ranges. Moreover, the full immersion in the Monastery life allowed to share the results and discuss their interpretation with the best scholars of the Monastic University, ensuring the identification of the most expert meditators, as well as to highlight better the differences between the different types of meditation practiced by each of them.

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“…A convincing corpus of literature report neurophysiological changes during meditative practices (Lutz et al, 2004 ; Britton et al, 2014 ; Lee et al, 2018 ; Brandmeyer et al, 2019 ; Volodina et al, 2021 ; Medvedev et al, 2022 ). At the same time, there is a high variability of the reported effects that accompany meditative states (Fell et al, 2010 ; Kaur and Singh, 2015 ; Lee et al, 2018 ; Brandmeyer et al, 2019 ), and this prevents the formulation of a theoretical description of ongoing neurophysiological modulations induced by meditative practices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SDA: a data-driven algorithm that detects functional states applied to the EEG of Guhyasamaja meditation

Mikhaylets,

Razorenova,

Chernyshev

et al. 2024

Front. Neuroinform.

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The study presents a novel approach designed to detect time-continuous states in time-series data, called the State-Detecting Algorithm (SDA). The SDA operates on unlabeled data and detects optimal change-points among intrinsic functional states in time-series data based on an ensemble of Ward's hierarchical clustering with time-connectivity constraint. The algorithm chooses the best number of states and optimal state boundaries, maximizing clustering quality metrics. We also introduce a series of methods to estimate the performance and confidence of the SDA when the ground truth annotation is unavailable. These include information value analysis, paired statistical tests, and predictive modeling analysis. The SDA was validated on EEG recordings of Guhyasamaja meditation practice with a strict staged protocol performed by three experienced Buddhist practitioners in an ecological setup. The SDA used neurophysiological descriptors as inputs, including PSD, power indices, coherence, and PLV. Post-hoc analysis of the obtained EEG states revealed significant differences compared to the baseline and neighboring states. The SDA was found to be stable with respect to state order organization and showed poor clustering quality metrics and no statistical significance between states when applied to randomly shuffled epochs (i.e., surrogate subject data used as controls). The SDA can be considered a general data-driven approach that detects hidden functional states associated with the mental processes evolving during meditation or other ongoing mental and cognitive processes.

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Traditional Buddhist meditations reduce mismatch negativity in experienced monk- practitioners

Cited by 4 publications

References 39 publications

Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: Are They Nonconscious, Unconscious, or Subconscious? Expanding the Discussion

Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: Are They Nonconscious, Unconscious, or Subconscious? Expanding the Discussion

Report from a Tibetan Monastery: EEG neural correlates of concentrative and analytical meditation

SDA: a data-driven algorithm that detects functional states applied to the EEG of Guhyasamaja meditation

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