Cambridge Consciousness and Cognition Lab, Department of Psychology, Downing Place, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EB, United Kingdom.
Consciousness, Culture and Complexity Lab, Department of Physics, Pabellón I, University of Buenos Aires, 1428, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Cereb Cortex. 2024 Aug 1;34(8). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae347.
Breathwork is an understudied school of practices involving intentional respiratory modulation to induce an altered state of consciousness (ASC). We simultaneously investigate the phenomenological and neural dynamics of breathwork by combining Temporal Experience Tracing, a quantitative methodology that preserves the temporal dynamics of subjective experience, with low-density portable EEG devices. Fourteen novice participants completed a course of up to 28 breathwork sessions-of 20, 40, or 60 min-in 28 days, yielding a neurophenomenological dataset of 301 breathwork sessions. Using hypothesis-driven and data-driven approaches, we found that "psychedelic-like" subjective experiences were associated with increased neural Lempel-Ziv complexity during breathwork. Exploratory analyses showed that the aperiodic exponent of the power spectral density-but not oscillatory alpha power-yielded similar neurophenomenological associations. Non-linear neural features, like complexity and the aperiodic exponent, neurally map both a multidimensional data-driven composite of positive experiences, and hypothesis-driven aspects of psychedelic-like experience states such as high bliss.
呼吸法是一种鲜少被研究的实践方法，通过有意的呼吸调节来诱导意识改变状态（ASC）。我们通过结合时间经验追踪（Temporal Experience Tracing），同时调查呼吸法的现象学和神经动力学。Temporal Experience Tracing 是一种定量方法，保留了主观经验的时间动态，同时使用低密度便携式 EEG 设备。14 名新手参与者在 28 天内完成了最多 28 次呼吸课程-每次 20、40 或 60 分钟-产生了 301 次呼吸课程的神经现象学数据集。使用假设驱动和数据驱动的方法，我们发现“迷幻样”的主观体验与呼吸过程中神经 Lempel-Ziv 复杂性的增加有关。探索性分析表明，功率谱密度的非周期性指数-而不是振荡的阿尔法功率-产生了类似的神经现象学关联。非线性神经特征，如复杂性和非周期性指数，在神经上既映射了积极体验的多维数据驱动组合，也映射了迷幻样体验状态的假设驱动方面，如高度幸福。
