Neurofeedback in Novice Meditators Can Alter Brain Activity like that Observed in Expert Meditators

Neurofeedback in Novice Meditators Can Alter Brain Activity like that Observed in Expert Meditators

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

Modern researchers and practitioners are finding a possible new solution to these challenges by using EEG biofeedback to increase awareness of subtle states of consciousness and speed the learning process.” – Jeff Tarrant

 

Meditation training has been shown to improve health and well-being. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. As a result, meditation training has been called the third wave of therapies. But meditation can be challenging to learn and many people become discouraged and drop the practice. But modern neuroscience has developed a tool called neurofeedback that can assist the meditator in improving the meditative experience.

 

In today’s Research News article “Closed-Loop Frontal Midlineθ Neurofeedback: A Novel Approach for Training Focused-Attention Meditation.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7344173/ ) Brandmeyer and Delorme recruited healthy meditation-naïve adults and assigned them to either a neurofeedback group or to an age and gender matched active sham control group. Training occurred over 2 weeks in 8 sessions. All participants had their electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded while performing breath focused meditation while receiving feedback as to the level of theta activity (4-6 hz.) from the frontal midline. They were instructed to try to increase the level of frontal midline theta. The neurofeedback group received feedback based upon their own brain activity while the sham group received the feedback, not from their own brain activity but from the activity of their paired experimental participant. At the beginning and end of the 8 training sessions the participants were measured for executive functioning including memory, sustained attention, and focused attention.

 

They found that the neurofeedback produced a significant progressive increase in frontal midline theta power over the 8 sessions while the sham control had none. The neurofeedback group also had a significant improvement in short-term memory while the sham group had a significant deterioration in short-term memory. While the neurofeedback group was performing the short-term memory task, they had a significant increase in gamma activity in the EEG which was absent in the sham group.

 

A strength of the present study is that the control condition was active and the participants went through the same protocol as the neurofeedback participants with the sole difference being that the neurofeedback participants received feedback on their own brain activity while the sham group did not. This is an excellent control condition that accounts for many potential sources of confounding. So, the results can be interpreted as due to the neurofeedback and not some other spurious cause.

 

High levels of midline frontal theta power in the EEG is characteristic of experienced meditators. It can be speculated that the neurofeedback procedure by increasing midline frontal theta power produce brain activity in novices similar to that produced by years of meditation training. The improved short-term memory is also observed in expert meditators. This suggests that neurofeedback may be used to rapidly improve meditation. It remains for future studies to examine whether the increased midline frontal theta power is associated with increased depth of meditation. If so, this may be a method to rapidly improve meditation in novices.

 

So, neurofeedback in novice meditators can alter brain activity like that observed in expert meditators.

 

Effective meditation practice is associated with several specific patterns of brain waves. This is one reason why neurofeedback is so effective, you can literally teach your brain to take on the right brain wave pattern for the style of meditation you are trying to practice.” – James V. Hardt

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Brandmeyer, T., & Delorme, A. (2020). Closed-Loop Frontal Midlineθ Neurofeedback: A Novel Approach for Training Focused-Attention Meditation. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 14, 246. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00246

 

Abstract

Cortical oscillations serve as an index of both sensory and cognitive processes and represent one of the most promising candidates for training and targeting the top-down mechanisms underlying executive functions. Research findings suggest that theta (θ) oscillations (3–7 Hz) recorded over frontal-midline electrodes are broadly associated with a number of higher-order cognitive processes and may serve as the mechanistic backbone for cognitive control. Frontal-midline theta (FMθ) oscillations have also been shown to inversely correlate with activity in the default mode network (DMN), a network in the brain linked to spontaneous thought processes such as mind-wandering and rumination. In line with these findings, we previously observed increased FMθ oscillations in expert meditation practitioners during reported periods of focused-attention meditation practice when compared to periods of mind-wandering. In an effort to narrow the explanatory gap by directly connecting observed neurophysiological activity in the brain to the phenomenological nature of reported experience, we designed a methodologically novel and adaptive neurofeedback protocol with the aim of modulating FMθ while having meditation novice participants implement breath-focus strategies derived from focused-attention mediation practices. Participants who received eight sessions of the adaptive FMθ-meditation neurofeedback protocol were able to significantly modulate FMθ over frontal electrodes using focused-attention meditation strategies relative to their baseline by the end of the training and demonstrated significantly faster reaction times on correct trials during the n-back working memory task assessed before and after the FMθ-meditation neurofeedback protocol. No significant differences in frontal theta activity or behavior were observed in the active control participants who received age and gender matched sham neurofeedback. These findings help lay the groundwork for the development of brain training protocols and neurofeedback applications that aim to train features of the mental states and traits associated with focused-attention meditation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7344173/

 

Improve Effortless Awareness Meditation with EEG Neurofeedback

Improve Effortless Awareness Meditation with EEG Neurofeedback

 

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

 

“Neurofeedback meditation supercharges your brain’s ability to learn and in this case it’s learning to go into profound states of meditation where an aspect of that state is rock solid focus and a quiet mind.” – Jonathan Banks

 

Meditation training has been shown to improve health and well-being. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. As a result, meditation training has been called the third wave of therapies. But, meditation can be challenging to learn and many people become discouraged and drop the practice. But, modern neuroscience has developed a tool called neurofeedback that can assist the meditator in improving the meditative experience.

 

In today’s Research News article “Source-space EEG neurofeedback links subjective experience with brain activity during effortless awareness meditation.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5001938/ ), Lutterveld and colleagues recruited novice and experienced (> 5 years) meditators. Novice meditators were taught to bring about a meditative state of effortless that consists of “concentration”, “observing sensory experience”, “not ‘efforting’“ and “contentment”. Experienced meditators were simply instructed to enter a state of effortless awareness. During the meditation the EEG was recorded and the activity of the brain waves in the gamma region (40-57 Hz) from the Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC) were recorded. The amount of activity was fed back to the participant in the form of a bar on a monitor screen the increased in size as the amount of activity increased.

 

They found that both groups reported that when they were experiencing effortless awareness the PCC Gamma activity was low. In addition, both groups were able to decrease the PCC Gamma activity when they tried. These results suggest that neurofeedback can be used to alter brain activity in targeted areas and frequency ranges. The Posterior Cingulate Cortex (PCC) is known to be a key structure in what is termed the default mode network. This network becomes active during times when the mind is wandering or in self-referential thought. So, the lowering of PCC Gamma activity with neurofeedback would suggest that the meditators are able to volitionally control mind wandering when appropriate feedback is available.

 

Since PCC Gamma activity is associated with effortless awareness these results suggest that neurofeedback can be used to train individuals to increase the amount of effortless awareness present in their meditation and decrease the amount of mind wandering. This in turn could markedly increase the quality of the meditation practice. Future research should explore the application of this neurofeedback for the improvement of meditation practice and its associated benefits.

 

So, improve effortless awareness meditation with EEG neurofeedback.

 

“If you meditate for an ulterior motive, that is to say, to improve your mind, to improve your character, to be more efficient in life, you’ve got your eye on the future and you are not meditating. Because the future, is a concept. It doesn’t exist.” – Alan Watts

 

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

 

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

 

Study Summary

 

Van Lutterveld, R., Houlihan, S. D., Pal, P., Sacchet, M. D., McFarlane-Blake, C., Patel, P. R., … Brewer, J. A. (2017). Source-space EEG neurofeedback links subjective experience with brain activity during effortless awareness meditation. NeuroImage, 151, 117–127. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.02.047

 

Abstract

Background

Meditation is increasingly showing beneficial effects for psychiatric disorders. However, learning to meditate is not straightforward as there are no easily discernible outward signs of performance and thus no direct feedback is possible. As meditation has been found to correlate with posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) activity, we tested whether source-space EEG neurofeedback from the PCC followed the subjective experience of effortless awareness (a major component of meditation), and whether participants could volitionally control the signal.

Methods

Sixteen novice meditators and sixteen experienced meditators participated in the study. Novice meditators were briefly trained to perform a basic meditation practice to induce the subjective experience of effortless awareness in a progressively more challenging neurofeedback test-battery. Experienced meditators performed a self-selected meditation practice to induce this state in the same test-battery. Neurofeedback was provided based on gamma-band (40–57 Hz) PCC activity extracted using a beamformer algorithm. Associations between PCC activity and the subjective experience of effortless awareness were assessed by verbal probes.

Results

Both groups reported that decreased PCC activity corresponded with effortless awareness (P<0.0025 for each group), with high median confidence ratings (novices: 8 on a 0–10 Likert scale; experienced: 9). Both groups showed high moment-to-moment median correspondence ratings between PCC activity and subjective experience of effortless awareness (novices: 8, experienced: 9). Both groups were able to volitionally control the PCC signal in the direction associated with effortless awareness by practicing effortless awareness meditation (novices: median % of time =77.97, P=0.001; experienced: 89.83, P<0.0005).

Conclusions

These findings support the feasibility of using EEG neurofeedback to link an objective measure of brain activity with the subjective experience of effortless awareness, and suggest potential utility of this paradigm as a tool for meditation training.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5001938/