Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice
Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar, Nancy B. Rawlings, Matthieu Ricard, Richard J. Davidson
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 8, 2004 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0407401101 via OpenAlex
Summary
Long-term Buddhist practitioners can self-induce sustained, high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony in the brain during meditation, as measured by electroencephalography. These EEG patterns differ from those of non-practitioners, especially over lateral frontoparietal electrodes. Before meditation, practitioners already show a higher ratio of gamma-band activity (25-42 Hz) to slow oscillatory activity (4-13 Hz) over medial frontoparietal electrodes compared to controls. This ratio increases sharply during meditation across most of the scalp and remains elevated afterward. The findings suggest that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may produce both short-term and long-term neural changes.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Long-term Buddhist practitioners and controls |
| Intervention | Meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Electroencephalography Audiology Cognition Scalp |
| Citations | 1,325 |
| Key finding | Long-term Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during meditation, with a higher gamma-to-slow-oscillation ratio that increases further during meditation and remains elevated post-meditation. |
Abstract
Practitioners understand "meditation," or mental training, to be a process of familiarization with one's own mental life leading to long-lasting changes in cognition and emotion. Little is known about this process and its impact on the brain. Here we find that long-term Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographic high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during meditation. These electroencephalogram patterns differ from those of controls, in particular over lateral frontoparietal electrodes. In addition, the ratio of gamma-band activity (25-42 Hz) to slow oscillatory activity (4-13 Hz) is initially higher in the resting baseline before meditation for the practitioners than the controls over medial frontoparietal electrodes. This difference increases sharply during meditation over most of the scalp electrodes and remains higher than the initial baseline in the postmeditation baseline. These data suggest that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long-term neural changes.