Sihn Duho, Kim Sung-Phil
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
Brain Sci. 2024 Sep 27;14(10):981. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14100981.
Meditation induces changes in the nervous system, which presumably underpin positive psychological and physiological effects. Such neural changes include alterations in the arousal fluctuation, as well as in infraslow brain activity (ISA, <0.1 Hz). Furthermore, it is known that fluctuations of arousal over time correlate with the oscillatory phase of ISA. However, whether this arousal-ISA correlation changes after meditation practices remains unanswered.; Methods: The present study aims to address this question by analyzing a publicly available electroencephalogram (EEG) dataset recorded during meditation sessions in the groups of experienced meditators and novices. The arousal fluctuation is measured by galvanic skin responses (GSR), and arousal-ISA correlations are measured by phase synchronization between GSR and EEG ISAs.; Results: While both groups exhibit arousal-ISA correlations, experienced meditators display higher correlations than novices. These increased arousal-ISA correlations in experienced meditators manifest more clearly when oscillatory phase differences between GSR and EEG ISAs are either 0 or π radians. As such, we further investigate the characteristics of these phase differences with respect to spatial distribution over the brain. We found that brain regions with the phase difference of either 0 or π radians form distinct spatial clusters, and that these clusters are spatially correlated with functional organization estimated by the principal gradient, based on functional connectivity.; Conclusions: Since increased arousal-ISA correlations reflect enhanced global organization of the central and autonomic nervous systems, our findings imply that the positive effects of meditation might be mediated by enhanced global organization of the nervous system.
冥想会引起神经系统的变化，这可能是积极心理和生理效应的基础。这种神经变化包括觉醒波动的改变，以及超慢脑活动（ISA，<0.1赫兹）的改变。此外，已知随着时间的推移，觉醒波动与ISA的振荡相位相关。然而，冥想练习后这种觉醒与ISA的相关性是否会改变仍未得到解答。；方法：本研究旨在通过分析一组经验丰富的冥想者和新手在冥想过程中记录的公开可用脑电图（EEG）数据集来解决这个问题。觉醒波动通过皮肤电反应（GSR）来测量，觉醒与ISA的相关性通过GSR和EEG ISA之间的相位同步来测量。；结果：虽然两组都表现出觉醒与ISA的相关性，但经验丰富的冥想者比新手表现出更高的相关性。当GSR和EEG ISA之间的振荡相位差为0或π弧度时，经验丰富的冥想者中这些增加的觉醒与ISA的相关性表现得更明显。因此，我们进一步研究了这些相位差在大脑空间分布方面的特征。我们发现，相位差为0或π弧度的脑区形成了不同的空间簇，并且这些簇在空间上与基于功能连接性由主梯度估计的功能组织相关。；结论：由于增加的觉醒与ISA的相关性反映了中枢和自主神经系统全局组织的增强，我们的研究结果表明，冥想的积极效果可能是由神经系统全局组织的增强介导的。
