title: Experienced mindfulness meditators exhibit higher parietal-occipital EEG gamma activity during NREM sleep.
abstract: Over the past several years meditation practice has gained increasing attention as a non-pharmacological intervention to provide health related benefits, from promoting general wellness to alleviating the symptoms of a variety of medical conditions. However, the effects of meditation training on brain activity still need to be fully characterized. Sleep provides a unique approach to explore the meditation-related plastic changes in brain function. In this study we performed sleep high-density electroencephalographic (hdEEG) recordings in long-term meditators (LTM) of Buddhist meditation practices (approximately 8700 mean hours of life practice) and meditation naive individuals. We found that LTM had increased parietal-occipital EEG gamma power during NREM sleep. This increase was specific for the gamma range (25-40 Hz), was not related to the level of spontaneous arousal during NREM and was positively correlated with the length of lifetime daily meditation practice. Altogether, these findings indicate that meditation practice produces measurable changes in spontaneous brain activity, and suggest that EEG gamma activity during sleep represents a sensitive measure of the long-lasting, plastic effects of meditative training on brain function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America.
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ferrarelli
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dentico
authors.forename: Brady A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Riedner
authors.forename: Corinna
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zennig
authors.forename: Ruth M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Benca
authors.forename: Antoine
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lutz
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Giulio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tononi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D058256:Brain Waves / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019122:Meditation; D008875:Middle Aged; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology*