Brain Topography
March 28, 2023
Roberto Guidotti, Antea D’Andrea, Alessio Basti et al.
32 citations
Machine learning applied to fMRI functional connectivity data can distinguish focused attention from open monitoring meditation styles, but only in expert Theravada Buddhist monks, not in novice meditators. The Anterior Salience and Default Mode networks were key for classification, consistent with their roles in emotion and self-regulation during meditation. Specific couplings between areas regulating attention, self-awareness, and somatosensory processing were also important, along with left inter-hemispheric connections. The findings support that extensive meditation practice differentially modulates large-scale brain networks according to meditation style.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
February 2, 2024
Antea D’Andrea, Pierpaolo Croce, Jordan O’Byrne et al.
13 citations
Theravada Buddhist monks with extensive meditation experience underwent magnetoencephalography during focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation, and resting states. Brain microstate coverage and occurrence differed between meditation and rest and between the two meditation styles. The Hurst exponent, a measure of long-range memory in brain dynamics, was lower during both meditation conditions than during rest. Lempel-Ziv complexity, which quantifies signal complexity, increased progressively from rest to focused attention meditation to open monitoring meditation. These changes in brain criticality indices suggest that meditation shifts brain dynamics toward a more critical state, paralleling changes in cognitive state.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
February 2, 2024
Antea D’Andrea, Pierpaolo Croce, Jordan O’Byrne et al.
13 citations
Theravada Buddhist monks with extensive meditation experience underwent magnetoencephalography during focused attention meditation, open monitoring meditation, and resting states. Brain microstate coverage and occurrence differed between meditation and rest and between the two meditation styles. The Hurst exponent, a measure of long-range memory in brain dynamics, was lower during both meditation conditions than during rest. Lempel-Ziv complexity, which quantifies signal complexity, increased progressively from rest to focused attention meditation to open monitoring meditation. These changes in brain criticality indices suggest that meditation shifts brain dynamics toward a more critical state, paralleling changes in cognitive state.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Annalisa Pascarella, Philipp Thölke, David Meunier et al.
Expert Buddhist monks practicing Samatha (focused-attention) and Vipassana (open-monitoring) meditation showed increased neural signal complexity and widespread reductions in gamma-band long-range temporal correlations and 1/f slope compared to resting state. Analysis of deviation from criticality revealed distinct computational states between the two practices, suggesting their different phenomenological properties arise from specific dynamic characteristics. Contrary to most prior reports, oscillatory gamma power decreased during meditation, a difference attributed to correcting the power spectrum for broadband 1/f activity. These findings advance understanding of neural processes underlying focused-attention and open-monitoring meditation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2014
Laura Marzetti, Claudia Di Lanzo, Filippo Zappasodi et al.
In expert Theravada Buddhist monks with long-term training, magnetoencephalography revealed that focused attention and open monitoring meditation differently alter the coupling of the posterior cingulate cortex—a key node of the default mode network involved in self-related processing and mind wandering—with other brain regions in the alpha frequency band (8–12 Hz). Focused attention and open monitoring meditation each produced distinct patterns of connectivity between the posterior cingulate cortex and nodes of the default mode network and executive control network.