Brain activity in near-death experiencers during a meditative state

Near-death experiencers who mentally visualize and emotionally connect with the 'being of light' they encountered during their experience show distinct brain activity compared to visualizing a lamp's light. Functional MRI reveals activation in regions linked to positive emotions, visual imagery, attention, and spiritual experiences, including the right brainstem, orbitofrontal and prefrontal cortices, insula, and temporal areas. EEG recordings show greater theta, alpha, and gamma power at multiple electrode sites across frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions during the meditation condition. These findings suggest that recalling a near-death experience involves measurable neural changes in emotion and imagery networks.

Study at a glance

Abstract

AimTo measure brain activity in near-death experiencers during a meditative state.MethodsIn two separate experiments, brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) during a Meditation condition and a Control condition. In the Meditation condition, participants were asked to mentally visualize and emotionally connect with the "being of light" allegedly encountered during their "near-death experience". In the Control condition, participants were instructed to mentally visualize the light emitted by a lamp.ResultsIn the fMRI experiment, significant loci of activation were found during the Meditation condition (compared to the Control condition) in the right brainstem, right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, right medial prefrontal cortex, right superior parietal lobule, left superior occipital gyrus, left anterior temporal pole, left inferior temporal gyrus, left anterior insula, left parahippocampal gyrus and left substantia nigra. In the EEG experiment, electrode sites showed greater theta power in the Meditation condition relative to the Control condition at FP1, F7, F3, T5, P3, O1, FP2, F4, F8, P4, Fz, Cz and Pz. In addition, higher alpha power was detected at FP1, F7, T3 and FP2, whereas higher gamma power was found at FP2, F7, T4 and T5.ConclusionsThe results indicate that the meditative state was associated with marked hemodynamic and neuroelectric changes in brain regions known to be involved either in positive emotions, visual mental imagery, attention or spiritual experiences.