Characterization of Meditation EEG based on Consistency of Covariance Matrices over Time

During meditation, brain activity patterns become more uniform across regions, as shown by EEG recordings from fifteen practitioners of Rajayoga meditation. The covariance matrices of neural activity between successive time windows become more similar, particularly in the frontal region, indicating reduced variability in brain connectivity during the meditative state compared to non-meditative states.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is investigated for changes in the pattern of brain activity during meditation. Correlation between the neural activity in each region with those of other regions of the brain are studied. EEG recorded from fifteen practitioners of the peace and angelic meditations, being part of the Rajayoga meditation of Prajapita Brahmakumaris World Spiritual University is analyzed for this study. The mean and variance of the Frobenius norms of the difference matrices between the covariance matrices of successive epochs is used to study the meditative and non-meditative states. Analysis has been carried out region wise. The covariance matrices become more uniform during meditation, leading to decreased distance between matrices of successive epochs. The frontal region shows significantly decreased distances between the covariance matrices during meditation.