Our article has been published in the Scientific Reports!

The article "Short-term meditation training alters brain activity and sympathetic responses at rest, but not during meditation" was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Authors: Anna Rusinova, Maria Volodina, Alexei Ossadtchi.

Although more and more people are engaging in meditative practices that require specialized training, few studies have addressed questions related to the changes in neural activity pattern induced by such training. It is unclear how many hours of practice are required to detect objective physiological changes and whether they are the same in novice practitioners. To clarify these questions, people with no meditation experience were invited into the study. One group took an eight-week course in Taoist meditation, while the other group listened to audiobooks. The experimental group showed changes in brain activity and heart rate variability associated with sympathetic system activation compared to the control group at rest.
The lack of noticeable changes in central and peripheral neural activity during meditation casts doubt on the effectiveness of biofeedback devices in meditation practice.