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Front Syst Neurosci. 2020 Aug 07;14:53. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2020.00053. eCollection 2020.

A Critical Analysis on Characterizing the Meditation Experience Through the Electroencephalogram.

Frontiers in systems neuroscience

Camila Sardeto Deolindo, Mauricio Watanabe Ribeiro, Maria Adelia Aratanha, Rui Ferreira Afonso, Mona Irrmischer, Elisa Harumi Kozasa

Affiliations

  1. Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, São Paulo, Brazil.
  2. Department of Integrative Neurogenomics and Cognitive Research (CNCR), Amsterdam Neuroscience, VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

PMID: 32848645 PMCID: PMC7427581 DOI: 10.3389/fnsys.2020.00053

Abstract

Meditation practices, originated from ancient traditions, have increasingly received attention due to their potential benefits to mental and physical health. The scientific community invests efforts into scrutinizing and quantifying the effects of these practices, especially on the brain. There are methodological challenges in describing the neural correlates of the subjective experience of meditation. We noticed, however, that technical considerations on signal processing also don't follow standardized approaches, which may hinder generalizations. Therefore, in this article, we discuss the usage of the electroencephalogram (EEG) as a tool to study meditation experiences in healthy individuals. We describe the main EEG signal processing techniques and how they have been translated to the meditation field until April 2020. Moreover, we examine in detail the limitations/assumptions of these techniques and highlight some good practices, further discussing how technical specifications may impact the interpretation of the outcomes. By shedding light on technical features, this article contributes to more rigorous approaches to evaluate the construct of meditation.

Copyright © 2020 Deolindo, Ribeiro, Aratanha, Afonso, Irrmischer and Kozasa.

Keywords: brain; contemplative science; electroencephalogram; meditation; mindfulness

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