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 via bioRxiv
Summary
Equanimity, a balanced mental state cultivated through meditation, is associated with shorter intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) in the brain. Advanced meditators from the Isha Yoga tradition showed higher equanimity and shorter INTs during breath-watching, indicating deidentification with mental contents. They also showed no significant differences in INTs between tasks, suggesting non-dual awareness. Shorter INTs correlated with participants' subjective perceptions of equanimity, pointing to a potential neural marker for this state.
Study at a glance
| Design | observational cohort |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 103 |
| Population | advanced and novice meditators from the Isha Yoga tradition and controls |
| Key finding | Shorter duration of brain's intrinsic neural timescales 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.