Report from a Tibetan Monastery: EEG neural correlates of concentrative and analytical meditation
Frontiers in Psychology May 2, 2024 B. Neri, A. Callara, N. Vanello et al.
Concentrative meditation produces more numerous and marked changes in EEG power than analytical meditation, mainly increasing theta, alpha, and beta frequency ranges. Twenty-three Tibetan Buddhist monks and geshes from Sera-Jey Monastery in India participated in ecological EEG recordings within the monastery, performing analytical or concentrative meditation sessions at their best after a 5-minute baseline. The collaboration with the monastic community helped identify expert meditators and clarify differences between meditation types, addressing the limitation that heterogeneity of practices often hinders generalization of meditation research.