Monitoring the neural activity associated with praying in Sahaja Yoga meditation.

Background: Sahaja Yoga Meditation draws on many religious traditions and uses a variety of techniques including Christian prayer to reach a state known as thoughtless awareness, or mental silence. While there are many studies on the neural correlates of meditation, few studies have focused on the neural correlates of praying. Thus, the aim of our research was to study the neural activity associated with the prayer practices in Sahaja Yoga Mediation, which have not been studied before, to explore effects beyond repetitive speech or "mantra effects".

Larger whole brain grey matter associated with long-term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A detailed area by area comparison.

Objectives: Our previous study showed that long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) had around 7% larger grey matter volume (GMV) in the whole brain compared with healthy controls; however, when testing individual regions, only 5 small brain areas were statistically different between groups. Under the hypothesis that those results were statistically conservative, with the same dataset, we investigated in more detail the regional differences in GMV associated with the practice of SYM, with a different statistical approach.

Design: Twenty-three experienced practitioners of SYM and 23 healthy non-meditators matched on age, sex and education level, were scanned using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Increased Grey Matter Associated with Long-Term Sahaja Yoga Meditation: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study.

Objectives: To investigate regional differences in grey matter volume associated with the practice of Sahaja Yoga Meditation.

Design: Twenty three experienced practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation and twenty three non-meditators matched on age, gender and education level, were scanned using structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging and their grey matter volume were compared using Voxel-Based Morphometry.

Results: Grey matter volume was larger in meditators relative to non-meditators across the whole brain.

Monitoring the neural activity of the state of mental silence while practicing Sahaja yoga meditation.

Objective: To identify the neural correlates of the state of mental silence as experienced through Sahaja yoga meditation.

Design: Nineteen experienced meditators underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during three short consecutive meditation periods, contrasted with a control relaxation condition.

Results: Relative to baseline, at the beginning of the meditation sessions there was a significant increase of activation in bilateral inferior frontal and temporal regions.