Functional Connectivity within Brain Networks of Long Term and Short term Meditators
Ashwini S Savanth1, P.A. Vijaya2, Bindu M. Kutty3
1Ashwini S Savanth, Department of ECE, BNM Institute of Technology, VTU, Bangalore (Karnataka), India.
2Dr. P.A. Vijaya, Department of ECE, BNM Institute of Technology, VTU, Bangalore (Karnataka), India.
3Dr. Bindu M. Kutty, Department of Neurophysiology, NIMHANS, Bangalore (Karnataka), India.
Manuscript received on 03 December 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 11 December 2019 | Manuscript Published on 31 December 2019 | PP: 29-34 | Volume-9 Issue-2S December 2019 | Retrieval Number: B11201292S19/2019©BEIESP | DOI: 10.35940/ijitee.B1120.1292S19
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open-access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: Meditation refers to a state of mind of relaxation and concentration, where generally the mind and body is at rest. The process of meditation reflects the state of the brain which is distinct from sleep or typical wakeful states of consciousness. Meditative practices usually involve regulation of emotions and monitoring of attention. Over the past decade there has been a tremendous increase in an interest to study the neural mechanisms involved in meditative practices. It could also be beneficial to explore if the effect of meditation is altered by the number of years of meditation practice. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a very useful imaging technique which can be used to perform this analysis due to its inherent benefits, mainly it being a non-invasive technique. Functional activation and connectivity analysis can be performed on the fMRI data to find the active regions and the connectivity in the brain regions. Functional connectivity is defined as a simple temporal correlation between anatomically separate, active neural regions. Functional connectivity gives the statistical dependencies between regional time series. It is a statistical concept and is quantified using metrics like Correlation. In this study, a comparison is made between functional connectivity in the brain regions of long term meditation practitioners (LTP) and short-term meditation practitioners (STP) to see the differences and similarities in the connectivity patterns. From the analysis, it is evident that in fact there is a difference in connectivity between long term and short term practitioners and hence continuous practice of meditation can have long term effects.
Keywords: FMRI, Functional Connectivity, Meditation, Meditation Experience.
Scope of the Article: Vehicular Networks