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.
Brain Topography
September 1, 2024
Remko Van Lutterveld, Avijit Chowdhury, Daniel M. Ingram et al.
29 citations
A single advanced meditator with over 6,000 hours of retreat mindfulness training experienced 37 cessation events—dramatic moments of profound clarity and equanimity involving a complete break in experience—while EEG was recorded. From 21 seconds before each cessation, whole-brain functional connectivity in the alpha band decreased linearly, then returned to prior levels over the 40 seconds following. The decrease was driven by frontal-to-left-temporal and posterior connections, while the recovery involved widespread increases. No change in network integration was observed. These findings provide neuroscientific evidence of large-scale brain modulation during cessation events, laying groundwork for future studies of advanced meditation.
Brain Topography
March 1, 2024
Sarah Diezig, Simone Denzer, Peter Achermann et al.
19 citations
During the transition to sleep, reflective awareness—the ability to recognize experiences as internally generated—breaks down before phenomenal awareness, the basic experience itself, fades. Dream-like experiences, characterized by uncontrolled thinking and perceptual images mistaken as real, are associated with an inverse relationship between cognitive effects and physiological activation in the brain. In 45 healthy young subjects, EEG microstate analysis showed that dream-like experiences correlated with increased presence of a microstate sourced in the superior and middle frontal gyrus and precuneus, and decreased presence of a microstate linked to higher-order visual areas. This suggests disengagement of cognitive control systems mediated by specific inhibitory microstates.
Brain Topography
September 5, 2025
Toedt Inken, Gesine Hermann, Enzo Tagliazucchi et al.
Consciousness levels vary across human sleep stages. This study tested whether functional connectivity (FC) between distant brain regions, measured via electroencephalography (EEG) phase coupling, reflects sleep stages and thus changes in consciousness. In 14 participants undergoing all stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, six phase coupling metrics were computed. Alpha-band coupling decreased from wakefulness to sleep stages N1 and N2, while delta-band coupling increased in deep sleep (N3). A classifier using FC features achieved up to 73% accuracy in distinguishing sleep stages. Distributed alpha-band phase patterns were most important for classification, supporting the hypothesis that long-range phase coupling, especially in the alpha band, is an electrophysiological correlate of consciousness across sleep stages.
Brain Topography
June 26, 2026
Poppy L A Schoenberg, Reza M Zargar, Sevket Hepark
ADHD involves a dominant Default-Mode Network (DMN) and reduced Task Positive Network (TPN) activity, impairing attention and executive function. Using EEG data from 54 ADHD patients and 16 healthy controls, the study found significantly reduced power across EEG spectra and increased medial ventral prefrontal cortex activation in ADHD patients. A 12-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) program, with 30 patients randomly assigned to MBCT and 24 to a wait-list, increased beta power and precuneus activation. These changes may reflect enhanced cortical alertness and more adaptive DMN-TPN regulation, suggesting MBCT's clinical utility and potential neural markers for inattention and executive dysfunction.
Brain Topography
June 17, 2026
Emilio Sanz-Morales, Helena Melero
The Default Mode Network (DMN) was discovered through data-driven analysis of resting-state fMRI, making it difficult to link the network to specific cognitive functions or personality traits, because no observable task is performed during scanning. Over two decades of research have not produced a consensus methodology for studying these relationships. The authors propose an alternative method that reduces the dimensionality of extensive psychological evaluations and the spatial features of intrinsic connectivity components. Their results show that connectivity networks are only low to moderately related to behavioral and personality traits, and that this relationship is not direct. The approach may help reveal how intrinsic brain network organization relates to individual differences in cognition and personality.
Brain Topography
April 24, 2026
Chuong Ngo, Erkin Bek, Monika Stasytyte et al.
Focused-attention meditation on the breath (Ānāpānasati) reorganizes large-scale brain dynamics by reducing a specific pattern of neural activity linked to self-referential and memory-based processing while increasing patterns associated with attentional stability and internal monitoring. In 22 experienced practitioners, EEG microstate analysis identified five canonical brain states (A-E). Meditation robustly reduced Microstate C—generated in temporal regions including the hippocampus—and increased Microstates D and E, which involve posterior midline and frontoparietal networks. These results indicate that focused attention shifts the temporal architecture of intrinsic brain activity away from default-mode-like processing toward states supporting sustained attention.
Brain Topography
September 1, 2017
Serena Scarpelli, Aurora D'Atri, Anastasia Mangiaruga et al.
Dream recall upon awakening from NREM sleep is predicted by reduced delta activity in left frontal and temporo-parietal areas during the final segment of sleep. This finding suggests that increased cortical activation is a prerequisite for remembering dreams from NREM sleep, challenging the traditional view that dreaming is unique to REM sleep. The study used a multiple nap protocol and within-subjects design to collect dream reports after stage 2 NREM sleep awakenings. The results indicate that the brain mechanisms underlying dream recall during NREM sleep may share features with those involved in encoding episodic memories during wakefulness, though they also depend on the specific electrophysiological state of sleep.
Brain Topography
September 1, 2016
Jérôme Daltrozzo, Boris Kotchoubey, Fatma Gueler et al.
Inhibitory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at 1 Hz increased the frequency of abnormal body perceptions (ABP) compared to excitatory 15 Hz rTMS in 35 healthy adults, but the stimulation site—right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) versus a control site—did not affect ABP frequency. Responses to an own-body transformation task were slower with 1 Hz than 15 Hz rTMS, also regardless of site. ABP from rTMS at either site was accompanied by electroencephalographic power decreases across all frequencies at left anterior and central cortical sites. These results suggest that inhibitory rTMS can induce ABP, but the rTPJ may not have a specific role in this process.
Brain Topography
November 1, 2009
Shisei Tei, Pascal L Faber, Dietrich Lehmann et al.
Long-term meditation practice may change the brain in ways that persist even when not meditating. Comparing Qigong meditators with non-meditators using EEG during rest, the meditators showed reduced activity in brain regions involved in judging or appraising, and increased activity in areas that process sensory information from inside and outside the body. These differences in delta brain waves suggest that the subjective experiences of greater awareness and detachment reported by experienced meditators are supported by lasting neuroplastic changes that carry over into everyday life.