The Balanced Mind and its Intrinsic Neural Timescales in Advanced Meditators
Saketh Malipeddi, Arun Sasidharan, Rahul Venugopal, Bianca Ventura, Clemens Christian Bauer, Ravindra P.n., Seema Mehrotra, John P John, Bindu M Kutty, Georg Northoff
bioRxiv Preprint Server August 29, 2024 preprint DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.29.609126 (opens in new tab) via bioRxiv
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractAdvanced meditators from the Isha Yoga tradition show shorter intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) during breath-watching, indicating deidentification with mental contents, and no significant differences in INTs between tasks, indicating non-dual awareness. Shorter INTs correlate with self-reported equanimity. The brain's intrinsic neural timescales may serve as a neural marker of equanimity.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Cross-sectional study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 103 |
| Population | Advanced and novice meditators from the Isha Yoga tradition and controls |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key finding | Shorter duration of the brain's intrinsic neural timescales correlates with higher levels of equanimity and may serve as a neural marker of equanimity. |
Abstract
A balanced mind, or equanimity, cultivated through meditation and other spiritual practices, is considered one of the highest mental states. Its core features include deidentification and non-duality. Despite its significance, its neural correlates remain unknown. To address this, we acquired 128-channel EEG data (n = 103) from advanced and novice meditators (from the Isha Yoga tradition) and controls during an internal attention (breath-watching) and an external attention task (visual-oddball paradigm). We calculated the auto-correlation window (ACW), a measure of brain’s intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) and assessed equanimity through self-report questionnaires. Advanced meditators showed higher levels of equanimity and shorter duration of INTs (shorter ACW) during breath-watching, indicating deidentification with mental contents. Furthermore, they demonstrated no significant differences in INTs between tasks, indicating non-dual awareness. Finally, shorter duration of INTs correlated with the participants’ subjective perceptions of equanimity. In conclusion, we show that the shorter duration of brain’s INT may serve as a neural marker of equanimity.