Project

Yoga and Meditation: Neurophysiological views from the Brain

Unveiling brain patterns and characterizing unique EEG signatures can help explore functional integration during mind-body practices (Yoga/Meditation) which are of primary importance in social neuroscience perspectives. It has been noted that brain-to-brain synchrony studies using Electroencephalography techniques were the primary requisite for understanding information transfer process and integration in brain neural circuits for cognitive processes such as memory, attention, motor coordination and visual perception. Our center’s focuses are on behavioral analysis and functional cortical mapping of brain oscillatory patterns associated with integrated yoga-meditation practitioners and non-practitioners. Our goal was to conduct a long-term study to compile variation maps in EEG signature across diverse populations and to identify any unique EEG signature activations in different lobes of -the brain that may be cross-linked to attention, memory or motor coordination. Our works themed “Signal Processing in Yoga-Related Neural Circuits and Implications of Stretching and Sitting Asana on Brain Function”, focus on understanding spatiotemporal and spectral characteristics of the brain associated with various cognitive tasks, a part of which was presented in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Cybernetics, Cognition and Machine Learning Applications (Goa, India (August, 29-30, 2020).  Identifying such neural correlates may function as a potential probe for mapping motor functions or attention deficit conditions in neurological conditions such as with Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis.