Long-term Brahmakumaris Rajyoga meditators practicing with open eyes show distinct changes in brain functional connectivity compared to controls listening to music. Using two measures—magnitude squared coherence (MSC) and imaginary part of coherency (ICoh)—the study finds that meditators have higher baseline MSC in frontocentral and centroparietal regions and higher |ICoh| globally in higher beta and gamma bands. During meditation, MSC increases in higher theta and alpha bands in frontal and parietal regions, while |ICoh| decreases across most regions and bands except alpha. Controls show no such changes during music. Increased frontal MSC and decreased |ICoh| suggest enhanced self-awareness; lower occipital MSC in meditators at baseline implies altered visual processing from long-term open-eye practice.
Long-term Brahmakumaris Rajyoga meditators practicing eyes-open meditation show increased functional connectivity in higher theta and alpha brainwave bands both within and across hemispheres, measured by pairwise phase consistency. Controls listening to music show no change in theta band. During baseline, meditators exhibit greater interhemispheric anterior-to-posterior integration in higher beta and slow gamma bands than controls. Increased integration between frontal electrodes in meditators suggests heightened self-awareness, while reduced occipital pairwise phase consistency relative to controls indicates modified visual processing from long-term eyes-open practice. These connectivity changes support the communication-through-coherence hypothesis and cortical integration theory during meditation-induced non-ordinary states.