Detection of Meditation States Using Array Electroencephalography
Presenters:
Lead Presenter: Asieh Ahani
Additional Presenters: Şeyhmus Güler Burak Erem Dana Brooks Gilead Tadmor Helane Wahbeh Barry Oken Deniz Erdogmus
Faculty Advisor/Principal Investigator: Deniz Erdogmus
Method of Presentation: Poster
Details:
Year: 2012
University Research Theme: Other
Abstract:
Meditation is an inward oriented practice associated with altered mental activity, in which a resting but alert state of mind is maintained. It is widely used in different forms of stress reduction or impulsive emotion control techniques. To aid in objective quantification of meditation state, we hypothesize that there may be markers of meditation depth contained in electroencephalographic (EEG) signals measured from an array of electrodes over the subjects’ head during meditation. In this study, we explore EEG signals from such subjects, before and during meditation, to evaluate the relationship between depth of meditation and changes in the signal ensemble. We further hypothesize that the phase relationship between pairs or sets of electrodes and the spatiotemporal strucutre of the signals will both reflect meditation state. Thus we report on development and testing of methods, including manifold discovery and phase synchrony, to characterize the EEG manifestation of these different meditative states.