RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Experienced meditators exhibit no differences to demographically-matched controls in theta phase synchronisation, P200, or P300 during an auditory oddball task
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 608547
DO 10.1101/608547
A1 JR Payne
A1 O Baell
A1 H Geddes
A1 B Fitzgibbon
A1 M Emonson
A1 AT Hill
A1 NT Van Dam
A1 G Humble
A1 PB Fitzgerald
A1 NW Bailey
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/04/14/608547.abstract
AB Objectives Long-term meditation practice affects the brain’s ability to sustain attention. However, how this occurs is not well understood. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies have found that during dichotic oddball listening tasks, experienced meditators displayed altered attention-related neural markers including theta phase synchronisation (TPS) and event-related potentials (ERP; P200 and P300) to target tones while meditating compared to resting, and compared to non-meditators after intensive meditation interventions. Research is yet to establish whether the changes in the aforementioned neural markers are trait changes which may be observable in meditators irrespective of practice setting.Method The present study expanded on previous research by comparing EEG measures from a dichotic oddball task in a sample of community-based mindfulness meditators (n=22) to healthy controls with no meditation experience (n=22). To minimise state effects, neither group practiced meditation during / immediately prior to the EEG session.Results No group differences were observed in behavioural performance or either the global amplitude or distribution of theta phase synchronisation, P200 or P300. Bayes Factor analysis suggested evidence against group differences for the P200 and P300.Conclusions The results suggest that increased P200, P300 and TPS do not reflect trait-related changes in a community sample of mindfulness meditators. The present study used a larger sample size than previous research and power analayses suggested the study was suficiently powered to detect differences. These results add nuance to our understanding of which processes are affected by meditation and the amount of meditation required to generate differences in specific neural processes.