Open monitoring meditation alters the EEG gamma coherence in experts meditators: The expert practice exhibit greater right intra-hemispheric functional coupling

• Published in: Consciousness and cognition Vol. 102; p. 103354
• Main Authors: Ken Tanaka, Guaraci, Russell, Tamara A., Bittencourt, Juliana, Marinho, Victor, Teixeira, Silmar, Hugo Bastos, Victor, Gongora, Mariana, Ramim, Maria, Budde, Henning, Aprigio, Danielle, Fernando Basile, Luís, Cagy, Mauricio, Ribeiro, Pedro, Gupta, Daya S., Velasques, Bruna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01-07-2022; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Adult; Cross-Sectional Studies; EEG; EEG gamma coherence; Electroencephalography; Fronto-parietal neuronal network; Humans; Meditation; Open monitoring meditation; Oscillations; Rest; Open monitoring meditation; EEG gamma coherence; Meditation; Fronto-parietal neuronal network
• ISSN: 1053-8100; 1090-2376
• DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2022.103354

•Mindfulness alters the EEG gamma coherence in experts meditators.•The right fronto-parietal network as a biomarker of the enhanced mindfulness training.•The meditation training alters fronto-parietal neural networks during the attentional focus.
This study investigated the differences in frontoparietal EEG gamma coherence between expert meditators (EM) and naïve meditators (NM).
This is a cross-sectional study with a sample of twenty-one healthy adults divided under two groups (experts meditators vs. naive-meditators), with analyzing the intra-hemispheric coherence of frontoparietal gamma oscillations by electroencephalography during the study steps: EEG resting-state 1, during the open presence meditation practice, and EEG resting-state 2.
The findings demonstrated greater frontoparietal EEG coherence in gamma for experts meditators in the Fp1-P3, F4-P4, F8-P4 electrode pairs during rest 1 and rest 2 (p ≤ 0.0083). In addition, we evidenced differences in the frontoparietal EEG coherence for expert meditators in F4-P4, F8-P4 during the meditation (p ≤ 0.0083).
Our results can support evidence that the connectivity of the right frontoparietal network acts as a biomarker of the enhanced Open monitoring meditation training.