Academic achievement and the paired Hoffman reflex in students practicing meditation.
The paired H reflex, considered to be the electrically evoked counterpart of the monosynaptic stretch reflex, provides a measure of motoneuron excitability under a variety of experimental and clinical conditions. It also offers a potentially useful tool in examining the neurophysiologic basis of alterations in reflex response in different states of awareness. This study investigated the relationship between the paired H reflex and academic achievement in students practicing the Transcendental Meditation program. The paired H reflex correlated significantly with grade point average, but not with SAT scores or any of three IQ measurements. These results suggest that the facilitation period of the paired H-reflex recovery curve may be a useful indicator of academic achievement, perhaps as a result of its relationship to awareness or wakefulness level.
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006181:H-Reflex; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012023:Reflex, Monosynaptic; D012064:Relaxation Therapy