A study from the University of Pisa published in Frontiers in Psychology investigated the neural bases of meditation activity, thanks to an exceptional group of volunteers: i monks of Sera-Jey, the Tibetan Monastic University in Karnataka (India).
The monks monitored with electroencephalogram
The Pisan team worked on data collected over several months, during which the monks were monitored in their daily meditations through the detection of electroencephalogram, cardiac and respiratory activity. The study is the only one of its kind that is based on the analysis of such a homogeneous and highly trained group: the monks can in fact dedicate themselves up to eight hours a day of meditation in retreats lasting years.
“The purpose of the research – explains Bruno Neri, professor of Electronic Engineering at the University of Pisa – was to investigate the neuronal correlates of two different types of meditation, concentrative and analytical. In the first, a cognitive state of awareness devoid of content and discursive thought can be reached; in the second the mind is directed towards an object of reflection (for example a philosophical or moral concept), which is analyzed in all its facets”.
The first results, adds researcher Alejandro Callara, “indicate that by analyzing the electroencephalographic signal it is possible to clearly distinguish between the two types of meditation: in particular, we have seen that concentrated meditation causes a drastic change in the power of this signal in most of the classical spectral bands and that the change is more evident at grow of the subject’s experience and in fact we have observed this phenomenon with certainty in those monks with more than 20 thousand hours of meditation under their belt“.
Meditation increases the capacity for self-awareness
Taking into account the scientific literature on the subject, continues Callara, “it would seem that with experience in practice the ability to activate attention mechanisms that allow us to suppress irrelevant and distracting stimuli grows, in favor of focus on self-awarenesswhich in fact is the very purpose of concentrated meditation: we also have observed that the same subject (expert) involved is in the analytical meditation which is capable of concentrative meditation only in the second case to generate variations that can be relevant for a more in-depth study on states non-ordinaries of consciousness induced by meditation”.
The next mission in Sera Jey will begin on June 29th. The group will aim to recruit other volunteers who are experts in some meditative practices capable of acting at the root of the mind/body relationship.
