Brain activity and meditation

Meditation and its effect on brain activity and the central nervous system became a focus of collaborative research in neuroscience, psychology and neurobiology during the latter half of the 20th century.

EEG has the benefit of excellent temporal resolution and is able to measure aggregate activity of portions or the entire cortex down to the millisecond scale.

Unlike other imaging based methods, EEG does not have good spatial resolution and is more appropriately used to evaluate the running spontaneous activity of the cortex.

Two large, comprehensive review works, however, point to poor control and statistical analyses in these early studies and comment that it can only be said with confidence that increased alpha and theta wave activity exists.

fMRI results indicated heightened activity in the cingulate cortex but also in the amygdala, temporo-parietal junction, and right posterior superior temporal sulcus in response to the emotional sounds.

There is also evidence to suggest meditation plays a protective role against the natural reduction in grey matter volume associated with aging.

[20] Despite this, however, Fox et al. found "consistent differences in prefrontal cortex and body awareness regions" in "areas key to meta-awareness..., exteroceptive and interoceptive body awareness..., memory consolidation and reconsolidation..., self and emotion regulation..., and intra- and interhemispheric communication..." and that changes were significant with "moderate" global median effect size and "consistent and medium-sized brain structure differences.

[citation needed] Besides scientific literature, some authors have written of the promising research on meditation in books targeted for general audiences.

Hanson's main argument is that positive emotions, like love can be strengthened through meditation in a neuroplastic manner, citing dozens of scientific studies to support this claim.

[21] Hanson's viewpoint is representative of a larger popular movement to study and embrace Eastern phenomena including meditation in the Western world.

[citation needed] In his book Bodhisattva's Brain: Buddhism Naturalized, Flanagan presents a more conservative viewpoint of current scientific research and cautions readers against the seemingly exciting results of recent studies.

[22] Similarly, Awasthi argues that meditation is non-specific to the research studies showing clinical efficacy in some cases, though mechanisms remain unclear.

Meditation research is still in its early stages and a lot more replicable results need to be established before the science community can back its efficiency.