Experienced meditators exhibit no differences to demographically-matched controls in theta phase synchronisation, P200, or P300 during an auditory oddball task
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) April 14, 2019 J.R. Payne, Oliver Baell, Harry Geddes et al. 6 citations preprint
Long-term meditation practice may not produce lasting changes in certain brain markers of attention. Experienced mindfulness meditators and non-meditators showed no differences in behavioral performance or in neural markers such as theta phase synchronisation, P200, and P300 during a dichotic oddball listening task when neither group meditated before or during the session. Bayes Factor analysis found evidence against group differences for P200 and P300. The findings suggest that increased activity in these attention-related neural markers does not reflect stable, trait-like changes in a community sample of mindfulness meditators, adding nuance to understanding how much meditation is needed to alter specific brain processes.