Experienced Mindfulness Meditators Exhibit Higher Parietal-Occipital EEG Gamma Activity during NREM Sleep
PLoS ONE August 28, 2013 Fabio Ferrarelli, Richard Smith, Daniela Dentico et al. 125 citations
Long-term Buddhist meditators with about 8,700 mean lifetime hours of practice show increased gamma power (25-40 Hz) in parietal-occipital regions during non-rapid eye movement sleep compared to meditation-naive individuals. This increase is specific to gamma frequencies, unrelated to spontaneous arousal levels during NREM sleep, and positively correlated with the length of lifetime daily meditation practice. The findings indicate that meditation practice produces measurable changes in spontaneous brain activity and suggest that EEG gamma activity during sleep may serve as a sensitive marker of long-lasting plastic effects of meditative training on brain function.