title: Spectral power and functional connectivity changes during mindfulness meditation with eyes open: A magnetoencephalography (MEG) study in long-term meditators.
abstract: Whilst a number of previous studies have been conducted in order to investigate functional brain changes associated with eyes-closed meditation techniques, there is a relative scarcity in the literature with regards to changes occurring during eyes-open meditation. The current project used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate differences in spectral power and functional connectivity between 11 long-term mindfulness meditators (LTMMs) with >5 years of experience and 12 meditation-naïve control participants both during baseline eyes-open rest and eyes-open open-monitoring (OM) mindfulness meditation. During resting with eyes-open, prior to meditating, greater mean alpha power was observed for LTMMs in comparison to controls. However, during the course of OM meditation, a significantly greater increase in theta power was observed over a broad fronto-centro-parietal region for control participants in comparison to LTMMs. In contrast, whole-head mean connectivity was found to be significantly greater for long-term meditators in comparison to controls in the theta band both during rest as well as during meditation. Additionally, mean connectivity was significantly lower for long-term meditators in the low gamma band during rest and significantly lower in both low and high gamma bands during meditation; and the variance of low-gamma connectivity scores for long-term meditators was significantly decreased compared to the control group. The current study provides important new information as to the trait functional changes in brain activity associated with long-term mindfulness meditation, as well as the state changes specifically associated with eyes-open open monitoring meditation techniques.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: W P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia; Illawarra Health & Medical Research Institute, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia; School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. Electronic address: camfield@uow.edu.au.
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Camfield
authors.affiliation: Brain & Psychological Sciences Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.affiliation: Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia; The University of Melbourne, Department of Psychiatry, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sarris
authors.affiliation: Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pipingas
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D058256:Brain Waves / Q000502:physiology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005123:Eye; D005260:Female; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D064866:Mindfulness / Q000379:methods*; D012146:Rest; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Default mode network; Eyes-open resting state; Functional connectivity; Gamma power; Magnetoencephalography (MEG); Meditation; Mindfulness; Phase synchronisation; Theta power