• Ratna Jyothi Kakumanu, Ajay Kumar Nair, Rahul Venugopal, Arun Sasidharan, Prasanta Kumar Ghosh, John P John, Seema Mehrotra, Ravindra Panth, and Bindu M Kutty.
• Department of Neurophysiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru 560029, Karnataka, India. Electronic address: jyothi.maanu@gmail.com.
• Biol Psychol. 2018 May 1; 135: 65-75.

AbstractMeditation, as taught by most schools of practice, consists of a set of heterogeneous techniques. We wanted to assess if EEG profiles varied across different meditation techniques, proficiency levels and experience of the practitioners. We examined EEG dynamics in Vipassana meditators (Novice, Senior meditators and Teachers) while they engaged in their traditional meditation practice (concentration, mindfulness and loving kindness in a structured manner) as taught by S.N. Goenka. Seniors and Teachers (vs Novices) showed trait increases in delta (1-4 Hz), theta-alpha (6-10 Hz) and low-gamma power (30-40 Hz) at baseline rest; state-trait increases in low-alpha (8-10 Hz) and low-gamma power during concentrative and mindfulness meditation; and theta-alpha and low-gamma power during loving-kindness meditation. Permutation entropy and Higuchi fractal dimension measures further dissociated high proficiency from duration of experience as only Teachers showed consistent increase in network complexity from baseline rest and state transitions between the different meditation states.Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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