Differences in neurological activity in advanced meditators

The following post was originally part of a presentation Eric Thompson gave on the Neuroscience of Meditation at the MindHive event at Naropa University in March, 2010. It is based on the research of Newberg and d’Aquili.

 

Stage 1

• Attention Association Area (AAA) in the right hemisphere is activated
• Eventually spreads to AAA in left hemisphere
• Deactivation of the surrounding areas in the frontal lobes
• Any burst of activity in these areas indicates the presence of random thoughts

Stage 2

• Increase in GABA
• Decreases stimuli arriving at frontal lobe
• Enhances focus
• Decreased activity in Orientation Association Area (OAA) in right parietal lobe
• Right parietal lobe normally mediates our sense of space
• Decreased activity results in the meditation of a felt sense of wholeness

Stage 3

The hippocampus:

• Conveys the emotional significance of the experience
• Imprints long-term memory
• Activates the right lateral amygdala

The amygdala:

• Confers emotional significance to the lack of incoming sensory information during meditation
• Influences the hypothalamus

Stage 4

The ventromedial hypothalamus:

• Activates the parasympathetic nervous system
• Relaxation
• Bliss
• Profound quiescence

Activity eventually spills over from the right hemisphere into the left hemisphere:

• Left and right parietal areas (OAA) are then switched off
• Correlated with the dissolution of the self/non-self boundary

Stage 5

Activity in the left hemisphere:

• Eventually activates the sympathetic nervous system
• Arousal
• Alertness
• Clarity

The resulting simultaneous activation of the parasympathetic (Yin) and sympathetic (Yang) nervous systems mediates:

• Stability
• Equanimity
• Shamatha
• Spiritual experiences

(Hypothalamus image courtesy of Life Science Databases.)