Meditation training is proposed to enhance mental well-being by modulating neural activity, particularly alpha and theta brain oscillations, and autonomic activity. Although such enhancement also depends on the quality of meditation, little is known about how these neural and physiological changes relate to meditation quality. One model characterizes meditation quality as five increasing levels of ‘depth’: hindrances, relaxation, concentration, transpersonal qualities and nonduality. We investigated the neural oscillatory (theta, alpha, beta and gamma) and physiological (respiration rate, heart rate and heart rate variability) correlates of the self-reported meditation depth in long-term meditators (LTMs) and meditation-naïve controls (CTLs). To determine the neural and physiological correlates of meditation depth, we modelled the change in the slope of the relationship between self-reported experiential degree at each of the five depth levels and the multiple neural and physiological measures. CTLs reported experiencing more ‘hindrances’ than LTMs, while LTMs reported more ‘transpersonal qualities’ and ‘nonduality’ compared to CTLs, confirming the experiential manipulation of meditation depth. We found that in both groups, theta (4–6 Hz) and alpha (7–13 Hz) oscillations were related to meditation depth in a precisely opposite manner. The theta amplitude positively correlated with ‘hindrances’ and increasingly negatively correlated with increasing meditation depth levels. Alpha amplitude negatively correlated with ‘hindrances’ and increasingly positively with increasing depth levels. The increase in the inverse association between theta and meditation depth occurred over different scalp locations in the two groups—frontal midline in LTMs and frontal lateral in CTLs—possibly reflecting the downregulation of two different aspects of executive processing—monitoring and attention regulation, respectively—during deep meditation. These results suggest a functional dissociation of the two classical neural signatures of meditation training, namely, alpha and theta oscillations. Moreover, while essential for overcoming ‘hindrances’, executive neural processing appears to be downregulated during deeper meditation experiences.

中文翻译：

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Alpha 和 theta 振荡与冥想深度的渐进水平成反比

冥想训练被提议通过调节神经活动，特别是 α 和 θ 脑振荡以及自主活动来增强心理健康。尽管这种增强也取决于冥想的质量，但对于这些神经和生理变化与冥想质量的关系知之甚少。一个模型将冥想品质描述为五个不断增加的“深度”水平：障碍、放松、专注、超个人品质和非二元性。我们研究了长期冥想者 (LTM) 和未冥想控制 (CTL) 中自我报告的冥想深度的神经振荡（θ、α、β 和 γ）和生理（呼吸率、心率和心率变异性）相关性）。为了确定冥想深度的神经和生理相关性，我们模拟了五个深度级别中每个深度级别的自我报告体验度与多个神经和生理测量之间的关系斜率的变化。CTLs 报告比 LTMs 经历更多的“障碍”，而 LTMs 报告比 CTLs 更多的“超个人品质”和“非二元性”，证实了对冥想深度的体验操纵。我们发现，在两组中，theta（4-6 Hz）和 alpha（7-13 Hz）振荡与冥想深度的关系正好相反。θ 幅度与“障碍”呈正相关，而与冥想深度水平的增加呈负相关。阿尔法振幅与“障碍”呈负相关，并且随着深度水平的增加呈正相关。θ和冥想深度之间的负相关增加发生在两组的不同头皮位置——LTM中的额中线和CTL中的额外侧——可能反映了执行处理的两个不同方面的下调——分别是监控和注意力调节——在深度冥想中。这些结果表明冥想训练的两个经典神经特征，即 alpha 和 theta 振荡在功能上是分离的。此外，虽然对于克服“障碍”至关重要，但执行神经处理似乎在更深层次的冥想体验中被下调。