Inducing a meditative state by artificial perturbations: A mechanistic understanding of brain dynamics underlying meditation.

Meditation produces distinct whole-brain dynamics compared to rest. Using fMRI data from expert meditators and controls, the authors defined probabilistic metastable substates (PMS) for each condition, capturing different probabilities of dynamic brain patterns. They then fit a whole-brain model to these substates and performed in silico perturbations to simulate transitions between resting-state and meditation. The results show that localized artificial perturbations can induce such transitions, and the sensitivity of different brain areas to perturbation varies. This mechanistic framework clarifies how meditation alters brain dynamics and suggests potential applications for health and therapy.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Contemplative neuroscience has increasingly explored meditation using neuroimaging. However, the brain mechanisms underlying meditation remain elusive. Here, we implemented a mechanistic framework to explore the spatiotemporal dynamics of expert meditators during meditation and rest, and controls during rest. We first applied a model-free approach by defining a probabilistic metastable substate (PMS) space for each condition, consisting of different probabilities of occurrence from a repertoire of dynamic patterns. Moreover, we implemented a model-based approach by adjusting the PMS of each condition to a whole-brain model, which enabled us to explore in silico perturbations to transition from resting-state to meditation and vice versa. Consequently, we assessed the sensitivity of different brain areas regarding their perturbability and their mechanistic local-global effects. Overall, our work reveals distinct whole-brain dynamics in meditation compared to rest, and how transitions can be induced with localized artificial perturbations. It motivates future work regarding meditation as a practice in health and as a potential therapy for brain disorders.