Cortical plasticity, contingent negative variation, and transcendent experiences during practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique.
F Travis, J J Tecce, J Guttman
Biological Psychology November 1, 2000 DOI: 10.1016/s0301-0511(00)00063-6 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Age-matched subjects with few (<1 per year), more frequent (10-20 per year), or daily self-reported transcendent experiences |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Late CNV amplitudes in simple trials were smallest in the group with fewest transcendent experiences and largest in the group with most frequent transcendent experiences, while CNV distraction effects showed the opposite pattern. |
Abstract
This study investigated effects of transcendent experiences on contingent negative variation (CNV) amplitude, CNV rebound, and distraction effects. Three groups of age-matched subjects with few (<1 per year), more frequent (10-20 per year), or daily self-reported transcendent experiences received 31 simple RT trials (flash (S(1))/tone (S(2))/button press) followed by 31 divided-attention trials - randomly intermixed trials with or without a three-letter memory task in the S(1)-S(2) interval). Late CNV amplitudes in the simple trials were smallest in the group with fewest, and largest in the group with most frequent transcendent experiences. Conversely, CNV distraction effects were largest in the group with fewest and smallest in the group with most frequent transcendent experiences (the second group's values were in the middle in each case). These data suggest cumulative effects of transcendent experiences on cortical preparatory response (heightened late CNV amplitude in simple trials) and executive functioning (diminished distraction effects in letter trials).