ArticleNeuropsychologia2023
Investigation of advanced mindfulness meditation "cessation" experiences using EEG spectral analysis in an intensively sampled case study.
Article in Neuropsychologia, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Brain criticality and advanced meditation "cessation" events: An intensively sampled electroencephalography case study.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2026Article
- The entropic brain today.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Review
- Non-duality in brain and experience of advanced meditators-key role for intrinsic neural timescales.Communications biology · 2026Article
- From hidden springs to endless oceans: exploring the complementary roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in phenomenal experience.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Towards an active inference account of deep meditative deconstruction.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- The neuroscience of highly stable, positive, and refined states of consciousness during jhana-type advanced concentration absorption meditation (ACAM-J).bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Advanced and long-term meditation and the autonomic nervous system: A review and synthesis.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Advanced concentrative absorption meditation reorganizes functional connectivity gradients of the brain: 7T MRI and phenomenology case study of jhana meditation.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Integrated phenomenology and brain connectivity demonstrate changes in nonlinear processing in jhana advanced meditation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Mindfulness-Based Intervention Effects on EEG and Executive Functions: A Systematic Review.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Investigating the complex cortical dynamics of an advanced concentrative absorption meditation called jhanas (ACAM-J): a geometric eigenmode analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Neurophysiological mechanisms of focused attention meditation: A scoping systematic review.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Mindfulness, cognition, and long-term meditators: Toward a science of advanced meditation.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Beyond mindfulness: how Buddhist meditation transforms consciousness through distinct psychological pathways.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Dynamic brain states underlying advanced concentrative absorption meditation: A 7-T fMRI-intensive case study.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Toward a Unified Model of Advanced Meditation, Human Development, Meditation Maps, and Transtradition Metaphors: Facing Impermanence, Suffering, and Death.Mindfulness · 2025Article
- Decoding Depth of Meditation: Electroencephalography Insights From Expert Vipassana Practitioners.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- Reimagining pain as an allostatic imperative: perspectives from contemplative traditions.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Multimodal neurophenomenology of advanced concentration absorption meditation: An intensively sampled case study of Jhana.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- Letter to the Editors.Brain topography · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Mindfulness meditation is a contemplative practice informed by Buddhism that targets the development of present-focused awareness and non-judgment of experience. Interest in mindfulness is burgeoning, and it has been shown to be effective in improving mental and physical health in clinical and non-clinical contexts. In this report, for the first time, we used electroencephalography (EEG) combined with a neurophenomenological approach to examine the neural signature of "cessation" events, which are dramatic experiences of complete discontinuation in awareness similar to the loss of consciousness, which are reported to be experienced by very experienced meditators, and are proposed to be evidence of mastery of mindfulness meditation. We intensively sampled these cessations as experienced by a single advanced meditator (with over 23,000 h of meditation training) and analyzed 37 cessation events collected in 29 EEG sessions between November 12, 2019, and March 11, 2020. Spectral analyses of the EEG data surrounding cessations showed that these events were marked by a large-scale alpha-power decrease starting around 40 s before their onset, and that this alpha-power was lowest immediately following a cessation. Region-of-interest (ROI) based examination of this finding revealed that this alpha-suppression showed a linear decrease in the occipital and parietal regions of the brain during the pre-cessation time period. Additionally, there were modest increases in theta power for the central, parietal, and right temporal ROIs during the pre-cessation timeframe, whereas power in the Delta and Beta frequency bands were not significantly different surrounding cessations. By relating cessations to objective and intrinsic measures of brain activity (i.e., EEG power) that are related to consciousness and high-level psychological functioning, these results provide evidence for the ability of experienced meditators to voluntarily modulate their state of consciousness and lay the foundation for studying these unique states using a neuroscientific approach.
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