Schizophrenia involves disconnection at neural, mental, and social levels, leading to poor quality of life due to cognitive deficits and negative symptoms that resist standard antipsychotics. Yoga may improve quality of life by targeting these symptoms. This paper proposes a model integrating neuroscience evidence: meditation styles may strengthen prefrontal brain networks, improving neurocognition and mentalizing; coordinated physical postures with a teacher may enhance social cognition and empathy via the mirror neuron system. Oxytocin is suggested as a mediator for social connectedness. The model offers clinical and heuristic implications.
Spiritual experiences and psychotic symptoms can appear similar, both involving alterations in the sense of self. Spiritual growth involves systematically reducing the ego to merge with universal consciousness, while psychosis stems from personality derangement. Clinical practice lacks clear guidelines for distinguishing them. This case presentation of a 34-year-old unmarried man with complaints of lacking a sense of self since childhood, existential questioning, social withdrawal, and occupational dysfunction uses qualitative analysis and discussions referencing ancient texts and modern psychology. The diagnosis was schizophrenia, not spiritual advancement, and the report tabulates clinically useful distinguishing features.
Audible 'OM' chanting produces a sensation of vibration that may stimulate the vagus nerve through its auricular branches. Using fMRI in 12 healthy volunteers, the neurohemodynamic correlates of 'OM' chanting were compared with pronouncing 'ssss' and with a resting state. 'OM' chanting caused significant deactivation bilaterally in the orbitofrontal, anterior cingulate, parahippocampal gyri, thalami, hippocampi, and right amygdala, with no significant activation. The 'ssss' condition showed no such changes. These limbic deactivations resemble those seen with vagus nerve stimulation used in depression and epilepsy, suggesting a potential clinical role for 'OM' chanting.
Consciousness can be altered willfully through various methods, including psychological means. While some induced states are pathological, many are not. Indian and other Eastern concepts emphasize that individuals can induce "higher states of consciousness" themselves. Physiological changes observed in these altered states point to a neural basis.