Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation: fMRI and EEG Evidence of Self-Stimulating a Reward System
Neural Plasticity May 22, 2013 Michael R. Hagerty, Julian Isaacs, Leigh Brasington et al.
The first neural recordings during the ecstatic meditative states called jhanas show that the extreme joy reported by an experienced meditator is associated with activation of the nucleus accumbens in the brain's dopamine/opioid reward system, along with changes in 10 other brain regions. These brain changes occurred promptly after entering jhana. The findings demonstrate an apparently novel method of self-stimulating a brain reward system using only internal mental processes, as three possible external mechanisms were tested and rejected.