CHAPTER

Meditation induces physical

relaxation and enhances
cognition: A perplexing
paradox
3
Kishore K. Deepak*
Department of Physiology, AlIMS, New Delhi, India
*Corresponding author: Tel.: +91-11-26594812/8826168442; Fax: +91-11-26588641,
e-mail address: kkdeepak@gmail.com

Abstract
Meditation induces physical and mental relaxation. Experimental evidence has also suggested
that meditation enhances cognition. The relaxation (physical and mental) and cognitive enhance-
ment are quite opposite tasks. It is quite surprising, how meditation produces these two quasi
opposite effects. It is well known that continued practice of sensori-motor and cognitive maneu-
vering would result in enhanced capacity of attaining physical and mental relaxation through
decreased sympathetic excitation. It is further known that meditation results in better attentional
regulation. The mechanism for meditation induced enhancement of cognitive function appears to
be due to cognitive restructuring, autonomic changes and release of cytokines. Recently, it has
been shown that the relaxation results in decreased levels of IL-1 and IL-6. Therefore, reduction
of cytokines by practice of meditation could well explain the enhanced cognition. The question
remains whether practice of meditation really enhances the cognition over and above the base-
line levels through enhance neural plasticity. Future studies might answer such questions. There
is a need for a unified hypothesis that could explain two opposing effects of meditation, namely
relaxation and cognition enhancement through meditation.

Keywords
Meditation, Cognition, Thought intrusion, Drift in attention, Non-analytic attending thought
wandering, Relaxation

1 Introduction
The focussed type of Indian meditation (Focussed Attention, FA) is as per the clas-
sical definition by Patanjali is a “restriction of mind fluctuation.” In simple terms, it
means calming down the brain. It says that our mind is always fluctuating by its
Progress in Brain Research, Volume 244, ISSN 0079-6123, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.030
© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
85
86 CHAPTER 3 A perplexing paradox

nature. By restricting its fluctuation one can achieve a “effortless awareness” what is
called “The Meditative state.” To attain it, a gradual process of maneuvering our be-
havioral, physical, breathing and mental states is required. All these are supposed to
reduce mental fluctuations. Therefore, attainment of meditation is a gradual modi-
fication of inputs to brain from the points of view of behavior (controlling reaction
toward world), physical (somatomotor), breathing (controlling respiratory fluctua-
tions) and mental (controlling brain oscillations). This gradually results in stillness
of mind (attainment of the meditation) and paves the way for higher levels. This is a
part of Yoga and has been documented nearly in 1st millennium BCE in the Katha
Upanishad (verses 2.6.10-11).
यदा पȰचावितɆठȺते ȍानािन मनसा सह ।
बुि̉Ʌच न िवचेɆटते तामाहुः परमां गितम् ॥ १० ॥
तां योगिमित मȺयȺते ɇिथरािमिȺʀयधारणाम् ।
अʃमȶतɇतदा भवित योगो िह ʃभवाȻययौ ॥ ११ ॥
Only when Manas (mind) with thoughts and the five senses stand still,
and when Buddhi (intellect, power to reason) does not waver, that they call the
highest path.
That is what one calls Yoga, the stillness of the senses, concentration of the mind,
It is not thoughtless heedless sluggishness, Yoga is creation and dissolution.
These verses speak volumes regarding the cognitive state of mind. This article tries
to examine the effect of such phenomena in terms of physical response and
cognitive state.

2 The meditation and relaxation response

Meditation practice results in physical and mental relaxation. Literature in early
1970s held the view that the meditation and physical relaxation are similar as both
aim at attaining a state, which acts as a countermeasure to stress. It was proposed that
(physiologically speaking) all such techniques are similar and have a common de-
nominator in the form of the so-called “Relaxation Response.” Meditation exhibits
effects quasi similar to “Relaxation Response” (Beary and Benson, 1974). The phys-
iological effects of physical relaxation include heightened feeling of subjective well
being, decreased arousal, generalized decrease in cerebral blood flow, decreased
core body temperature, decreased adrenergic tone, reduced muscle activity, reduced
plasma lactate, and decreased respiration (Wallace et al., 1971). The simple
relaxation is actually a combined effect of reduction in afferent inputs and efferent
attenuation. This was a logical and forceful concept. Therefore, the concept of
“Relaxation Response” gained the acceptance among scientists and clinicians of
all spheres. It did little help of focusing the research on all techniques inducing
“Relaxation Response.” Putting all relaxation inducing techniques in one basket
“relaxation response” was a great idea, but soon scientists started looking for unique
strengths in meditative techniques. Early 1980s, several scientists started believing
 3 Neuro-physiological model of meditation 87

that meditation may be unique in producing specific effects (Badawi et al., 1984). It
is evident that the effects of meditation are more than passive relaxation (Dunn et al.,
1999), as it has a component of cognitive re-structuring.
There are several studies that point toward the fact that the meditative response
is different than relaxation response with reference to autonomic (Corby et al.,
1978) and neurophysiologic (Dunn et al., 1999) considerations. Dunn et al.
(1999) conducted a study to compare the concentrative meditation, open medita-
tion (Buddhist Zen meditation) and passive form of relaxation. The study has sug-
gested that the concentrative meditation and Zen meditation involve different set
of brain structures. Therefore, the current understanding on the difference between
meditation and simple form of relaxation is that meditation is entirely a different
phenomena considering brain activation.
Recent review of neuroimaging studies by Fox et al. (2016) provides ample
data to support this notion. They argued that different types of meditative states
involve different patterns of brain activation. The two most commonly used
meditation, i.e., Indian classical meditation (focused attention) and Buddhist med-
itation (Open monitoring) are entirely different from neurophysiological points of
view (Manna et al., 2010). Table 1 provides detailed comparison in these two types
of meditative practices. It is clear that the cognitive strategies adopted in two types
of meditation (FA and OM) are entirely different.

3 Neuro-physiological model of meditation

To inquire into the ways to attain the Meditative state is quite interesting. Several
anatomical imaging studies during meditation (Lazar et al., 2000; Lou et al.,
1999) and several physiological studies (Anand et al., 1961; Wallace et al., 1971)
have generated enough evidence to create a hypothetical model to understand the
brain functioning which the author published as a model. This model involves three
components to induce meditation, namely efferent attenuation (reducing the somato-
motor activity), afferent attenuation (sensory restriction, both at physical and at
mental level) and cognitive restructuring (Deepak, 2002, 2004). The model supports
the view that association cortices remain poorly connected to and from input/output
but remain activated from internal inputs like representation memory, emotion and
consciousness regulating inputs from thalamus. The later connectivity is capable of
producing alpha rhythm.
A quasi similar computational model has been proposed by Kerr et al. (2013)
where a top-down alpha model has been proposed to produce alpha rhythm which
the author used to explain the useful effect of meditation in pain. The neuro-
physiological model represented in Fig. 1 explains the initiation and maintenance
of meditative state, described elsewhere (Deepak, 2002). There are essentially
three subunits: Efferent, afferent and central processing of inputs and cognitive
re-structuring. Fig. 2 explains how cognitive restructuring might be working dur-
ing meditative process. This represents three functional units operating within
Table 1 Differences and similarities among analytical attention, meditative concentration and mindful meditation.
Selective attention, e.g., attending a target Meditative concentration, e.g., Indian Mindful meditation, e.g.,
on RADAR screen traditional meditation. TM. Raj Yoga meditation Zen meditation

1. Procedure It is a deliberate or spontaneous act to analyze a. Initiated by adopting an automatic act like a. Open receptivity and
a stimulus. A detailed analysis is carried out visualize breathing, passive counting, etc. awareness to all incoming
for the purpose decision making, trouble b. Attention focused non-analytically to word stimuli
shooting, etc. repetition or a point on body part, or on b. Evaluation, analysis or
breathing or on imagery, etc. classification of those
c. Disregard to other stimuli and thought stimuli is suppressed
c. It is a de-atomization of
perception.
d. Maximize the breath and
clarity of awareness
2. Type of task(s) Intake and/or rejection Rejection with no analysis attached to it Intake with detached
observation
3. Sensory Visual, auditory or any other. The source object is Mainly visual, sometimes auditory is used to initiate None particular
modality and external, worldly, well defined, changing with the process. The source object is internal, vague
source object for time and space (During the initial phase of learning meditation, the
attention object could be external but featureless and
consistent in time)
4. Output a. Helps generating detailed information on a. No information is gathered a. No storing of received
stimuli, its classification and the information b. No motor action is implicated information (a detached
are stored in memory observation)
b. Suitable action taken by motor system b. No action implicated
5. Autonomic Involved in process with autonomic arousal Involved in process with decreased arousal (relaxed Involved in process with
changes awareness) decreased arousal (relaxed
awareness)
6. Purpose of Key event in acquiring worldly knowledge, – To achieve relaxation As in meditative concentration
procedure defense, survival and sports – To reduce stress
– Spiritual purpose
7. Physiological Maximize depth and clarity on focus, analyze Minimize the intrusions by disregarding objects/ Maximize the breadth and
role and initiate appropriate action thoughts clarity of awareness of
incoming signals but remain
detached to them
8. Relation to Integral part of perception-motor equation Disregard to perception-motor equation De-atomization of perception
perception (Farthing, 1992)
9. Behavioral Aroused, tense or hyper excited, habituating Relaxed clam and aware. Non-habituating As for meditative concentration
correlates (Farthing, 1992)
10. EEG a. Global β waves a. Persistent parieto-occipital ∞ waves a. Persistent global ∞ waves
correlates b. Frontal midline θ at more depth of attention b. As depth increases may be interspersed by θ b. Frontal midline θ at more
(Nakashima and Sato, 1993) and parietal leads (Hebert and Lehmann, 1977) depth (Kubota et al., 2001)
(Some more variations
reported)
11. Factors a. Context a. Motivation As for meditative concentration
determining b. Motivation b. Length of practice
success c. Reward/punishment factors c. Individual characteristics
d. Individual characteristics
12. Pre-requisites Certain degree of arousal (sympathetic Any factor leading to sympathetic arousal will inhibit Like meditative concentration
activation) is facilitatory the initiation of procedure
13. Periodicity Periodic, 20 min stretch Aperiodic, induced phenomena As in meditation
and span

Courtesy: Reproduced with permission from Deepak, K.K., 2002. Neurophysiological mechanisms of induction of meditation: a hypothetico-deductive approach. Indian. J. Physiol.
Pharmacol. 46 (2), p143.
90 CHAPTER 3 A perplexing paradox

Prefrontal cortex
Initiation

Posterior parietal/Temporal Cortices

Non-analytic attending
Minimal information processing

Thalamic
Reticular nuclei
Rhythm Generator I

Pontine reticular
nuclei
Rhythm Generator II

Input
Quantum: Minimal Output
Characteristics: Minimal
a) Non novel If at all any output is there. It is:
b) Featureless a) Rendered abundant
c) Vague b) Not stored in memory
Imagery [+ve contents] c) Made stereotype
Does not impose an action
Rendered stereotype
FIG. 1
The representation of neurophysiological model of meditation. Characteristics of input
and output, and neural structures involved in processing them during initial and sustained
stage of meditation. The dashed lined boxes are involved in initiation of meditation. The
thick lined boxes contain core structures involved in maintaining sustained meditative state.
The thick lined arrows indicate the pathways along which idling rhythm is generated
during sustained meditation. There are several other structures involved during initial phase
(pre-meditation or inductive phase) and others, which are spontaneously active during
sustained stage. Refer text and Table 1 for further details.
Courtesy: Reproduced with permission from Deepak, K.K., 2002. Neurophysiological mechanisms of induction
of meditation: a hypothetico-deductive approach. Indian. J. Physiol. Pharmacol. 46, 154.

brain. The prefrontal cortex initiates the meditative process. The prefrontal cortex
also helps to detect and avoids the wandering thoughts or helps detach from stream
of stimuli (unit 1, Fig. 2). This unit is primarily a decision taking unit and is also
driven by inputs from thalamus, pons and hippocampus. The functional unit 2
helps to arrest intruding thoughts and induces perceptual changes. The functional
unit 3 involves temporal lobes. This unit helps to scan the internal memory repre-
sentations and creates the feeling of void and spatial perceptions and perception of
 4 The cognitive restructuring during meditation 91

Desire to initiate meditation

Enter into non-analytical attending
Detection of drifts in attention.
[Functional unit 1]

Arrest of drifts/intruding thoughts

Perceptual changes
[Functional unit 2]

Scanning the inflow of information from memory

Perception of void, imaginary space and form
Perception of internal sounds
Emotional elaboration through autonomic responses
[Functional unit 3]

Rhythm generator (s)

Blocking of sensory input
[Background support]

FIG. 2
The functional model of brain functioning in the induction and sustenance of meditation.
For details please refer to the text and Fig. 1.
Courtesy: This figure was reprinted with permission from Deepak, K.K., 2004. Brain mechanisms of meditation.
Biofeedback 32, 29–31. Available from: https://www.aapb.org/files/public/BIOFEEDBACK_FALL04_WEB.pdf
published by the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, www.aapb.org.

internal sounds. This is the unit that may be involved in emotional elaboration and
creation of weird memory patterns often reported by meditators.
Fox (2016) in his PhD thesis, after detailed meta-analysis, concluded that the
thought are most like to be generated in medial temporal lobe. All these three units
would require an oscillatory driver, and thalamus appears to integrate the three. This
point has also been supported by Kerr et al. (2013) suggesting that alpha requires
certain latency to drive cortices and produces alpha rhythm in EEG. Further, recently
a meta-analysis suggests that insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex are involved
in various types of meditative processes, perhaps to explain salience and selective
attention, which are common components of various types of meditation (Fox
et al., 2016). Thus, the involvement of cingulated cortex is common for both med-
itative states and attention activities (cognition).

4 The cognitive restructuring during meditation

During physical relaxation the central nervous system attains a new state of function-
ing. During this process the brain receives least amount of information from somato-
sensory inputs and also generates the least amount of event output. It gives central
92 CHAPTER 3 A perplexing paradox

nervous system ample opportunity to process internal activities at an enhanced pace.

The internal activities could be related to perceiving internal sound from internal ear
apparatus, sensation arising from viscera, sensation arising from skeletal muscular
activity, sensation arising from pulsating vascular structures, sound arising from vis-
cera, sensation arising from inner ear, etc.
During focused attention meditation, additional mechanisms are wheeled into ac-
tion. It may involve cognitive restructuring. The cognitive restructuring means the
brain is given suggestions and instructions to process the information in a particular
way. This is evident by the types of suggestions given to the subject. This is akin to
implantation of hetero-suggestion in hypnosis. For focused attention meditation, the
instructions are given to attain a focus on single object. This could be a certain sound
or to focus attention on breathing. The instructions actually are aimed at channelizing
the thinking/mental process. Such stimuli do not involve analytical processing, there-
fore, these are considered as non-analytical attending. Further, one is encouraged to
enhance the capability to focus attention on one object. The subject is advised not to
have intruding thoughts.
The meditation induction process at various levels of induction involves vary-
ing degrees of attempt to dissociate the external influences and to focus on thought
process. To be precise, the focus is on one’s inner thought process, which is essen-
tially set to reduce them to minimum state. This is a clear example of restructuring
the cognitive process in the brain. It also involves serious efforts to dissociate the
external stimuli or internal wandering thoughts. All thoughts have potential to get
manifested as internal or external actions. What meditation does is to create a sit-
uation when the action associated with stimuli of thought is nullified. A thought is
a powerful stimulus to initiate feelings, sensation and autonomic responses. The
practice of meditation gradually suppresses feelings/sensations and other re-
sponses. All these processes are facilitated by physical relaxation. This makes
the internal noises quiet by the very nature of its functioning. The brain generates
continuous stream of thoughts as background noise. It is rather compulsive. The
thought once generated may meet one or several outcomes. It may generate another
connected thought or may generate a sequence of somato-motor excitation or dies
out. Humans have the capacity to learn to detect the intruding thoughts and
avoid them.

5 Thought wandering and detection of intruding thoughts

The mind constantly keeps jumping from one thought to another. This is thought
wandering. It has been a focus of discussion as how to control and monitor this
thought wandering. In FA meditation, one needs to detect the intruding thought
(called intrusion or drift in attention), however in OM meditation one needs to ac-
tively detach from passively flowing thoughts (Table 1). To learn what is happening
inside the meditative brain, two approaches have been used in past; firstly, “use of
post-meditation questionnaire” (Kubose, 1976; Osis et al., 1973) and second, the
“use of physical devices to detect the thought occurrence in the brain using button
 5 Thought wandering and detection of intruding thoughts 93

press” (Van Nuys, 1973). The following description focuses on the button press tech-
nique to gain information from the meditating subjects.
To detect the thought wandering (or thought intrusion or drifts in the attention)
the technique of button press has been earlier used by Dunn et al. (1999). In this tech-
nique, a hand held electric button switch is given to the subject. He is supposed to
press it during meditation whenever he encounters an intrusion. In spite of being little
invasive into the meditative process, it is an excellent technique for studying thought
wandering. During the same period this technique was used by Banquet (1973) in
order to classify the types of the thoughts that intrude during meditation. He prepared
a list of five commonly occurring thoughts (Bodily sensation, involuntary move-
ments, visual images, deep meditation, and deepest level of meditation). In fact it
was Kubose (1976) who proposed and used these five categories of event to get in-
sight of the people performing meditation. Banquet (1973) provided a five switch
button to press, and expected to press one for each designated switch for one kind
of thought. Thus, whenever particular type of thought intrusion occurred, the subject
was supposed to press that particular switch. However, it appears that using five but-
ton presses during meditation is a cumbersome process and perhaps the process itself
might be disturbing the process of meditation.
In our experiments, we used button press techniques for two purposes; firstly, to
monitor the progress of meditation and quality of intrusions, secondly to study EEG
changes during intrusion/drifts. Therefore, not only we could monitor the quality of
meditation, but also by recording thought intrusions, we used this technique for giv-
ing meditation training to our patients of drug resistant epileptics and healthy yogis
(Deepak, 1990; Deepak et al., 1994). We gave training sessions for epileptics in the
laboratory by giving them a hand held micro-switch device connected to electroen-
cephalograph (EEG) machine. The patients and subjects were asked to press the mi-
cro switch whenever they encountered intrusion during 20 min of meditation session
in the lab. The details of micro switch presses (frequency, duration, the EEG changes
prior and after the switch press) were recorded and analyzed. The quantity of switch
presses and duration of EEG de-synchronization was used to monitor and improve
the quality of meditative process (Fig. 1).
In our study, we examined the occurrence of intrusion during meditation among
the patients of epilepsies and long-term meditators by using micro-switch device. We
recorded EEG during meditation and observed the micro-switch presses. The exam-
ination of EEG changes during micro-switch presses showed three types of changes:
Type A: The desynchronized EEG preceded the micro-switch press and outlasted
it. This indicated arousal as the frequency fell in beta range.
Type B: Atypical changes, which did not conform to above-mentioned EEG
changes.
Type C: No EEG changes during micro-switch press.
Of a total of 128 intrusion records obtained in our study there were 71 of type A,
31 were type B and rest 26 were type C intrusions. For type A and B intrusion re-
cordings, the EEG changes preceded by a latency of 0.5–8.7 s (Deepak, 1990).
One such representative record is being shown in Fig. 3. The intrusion event shows
94 CHAPTER 3 A perplexing paradox

P3-O1

P4-O2

P3-A1

P4-A2

O2-O1

50 uV
1/sec

P3-O1

P4-O2

O2-O1

50 uV

1/sec

FIG. 3
The record shows EEG changes before, during and after occurrence of “intrusion” observed
during meditation. The five traces represent EEG records from five scalp locations-left
and right parieto-occipital regions (P3-O1, P4-O2), left and right parietal areas (P3-A1,
P3-A2), and bilateral occipital areas (O1-O2), The intrusion (shown as T on the record) is
recorded on the time tracing. Several of such intrusions were encountered during meditation
of 20 min duration. To record the intrusion, the subject was given a hand-held
microswitch and was advised to press the microswitch whenever he encountered an intrusion
or drift in the word repetitive process (meditational task). He was advised to resume the
meditation process soon after the encountering the intrusion. Typically, the EEG became
desynchronized prior to the intrusion occurrence. The EEG changes were best represented
over parietal areas (channel 4, upper panel). In the upper panel, the occurrence of intrusion
was noticed 2 s after the appearance of EEG changes and total desynchronization lasted
for 3.5 s. These EEG changes outlasted the event marking by the subject. The latency
gradually decreased with practice. After 6 months of meditation practice (lower panel) the
intrusion was detected earlier (at 0.5 s) and total desynchronization lasted for 2.5 s. The long
term practice of meditation resulted in decrement in total number of intrusions during a
20 min meditation session. These decrements were found to be significantly correlated to
neuropsychological indicators of relaxation and clinical improvement in cases of drug-
resistant epilepsy patients (Deepak et al., 1994).
Courtesy: Upper panel figure is being reproduced with permission from Deepak, K.K., 2002. Neurophysiological
mechanisms of induction of meditation: a hypothetico-deductive approach. Indian. J. Physiol.
Pharmacol. 46, 146.
 6 Meditation can improve cognition 95

preceding and outlasting appearance of beta waves in EEG (the evidence of brain
activation probably representing appearance of intruding thought) and, its detection
by the subject and later resumption of meditative state by the subject. Our study
shows that the subjects learned to reduce the intensity (duration) and the number
of occurrence of intrusions. Fig. 3 depicts two sets of EEG records of intrusion
events, taken in the beginning and after 6 months (during which the subject has been
learning meditation). At 6 months the latency and duration of intrusion have de-
creased (Deepak et al., 1994). The use of micro-switch is a useful technique both
for recording, monitoring intrusions. This is likely to improve the quality of medi-
tation. Nevertheless, the intrusion rate was significantly related to clinical outcome.
The percentage change in mean cumulative duration was found to have mild positive
effect with percentage change in intrusion rate (correlation coefficient 0.51). The re-
gression analysis suggested that initial level of intrusion rate was directly related to
cumulative duration of seizure attacks. If the initial intrusion were lower by one unit,
the cumulating duration would be less by 0.7 units (Deepak, 1990).

6 Meditation can improve cognition

There is large data available suggesting that meditation improves cognition. Zeidan
et al. (2010) conducted four sessions of either meditation training or listening to a
recorded book. The participants had no prior experience in meditation practice.
The experimenter had assessed the measure of mood, verbal fluency, visual coding
and working memory. The author concluded that both interventions were effective at
improving mood but only meditation training reduced fatigue and increased mind-
fulness. Mindfulness training significantly improved visual and spatial working
memory and executive functioning. These findings suggest that 4 days of meditation
training can enhance the ability to sustain attention suggesting that it is an effective
procedure. In another study, a 7 day intense meditation training resulted in distinct
cognitive effects in meditators (Kozasa et al., 2018). A 12 week supervised training
session combined with 12 min. Daily home session in Yogic meditation (Kundalini
Yoga) did not show better result as compared to memory enhancement training prac-
tice (Yang et al., 2016). The authors measured neuroplastic changes in patients of
mild cognitive impairment. In this study, due to lack of control (non-meditators)
it was not possible to comment on changes induced by meditation practice. In the
same year, Sperduti et al. (2016) published a study where the authors showed that
meditation practice can prevent age related decline in efficiency of the executive
component of attention.
Most of the aforesaid studies used passive meditative controls (non-meditation
group or wait listed controls). In an interesting randomized longitudinal clinical trial,
MacCoon et al. (2014) used a structurally equivalent control, which was a part of
Health Enhancement Program and measured visual continuous performance task.
The result suggests that the sustained attention (attention sensitivity) is not improved
by mindfulness based stress relaxation (MBSR). The sustained analytical attending is
96 CHAPTER 3 A perplexing paradox

antithesis to the very concept of meditation in both open monitoring or focused at-
tention type of meditation. In both types of meditation, the subject performs non-
analytical attending. Further, during MBSR, subject detaches himself from flowing
(wandering) thoughts. Therefore, this study is perplexing example where MBSR
induces physical relaxation, but no increment in attentional sensitivity. This study
further points toward the need to critically examine the effects of meditation shown
in the literature. However, there is evidence that long-term practice of intensive med-
itation may enhance sustained attention and response inhibition (Zanesco et al.,
2018). Zeidan et al. (2010) suggested that a bit of meditation might help sharpening
the mental focus and improve attention; the effect appears similar to coffee break in a
smaller way. Although this is an exaggeration, but suggests a simple and useful point,
why not a “Meditation break.” If you need a Coffee Break, let there be a “Meditation
Break” to relieve stress and increase efficiency simultaneously. However, Sedlmeier
et al. (2012) in a large meta analysis involving 163 studies found an effect size of 0.28
and concluded that the effect of meditation on cognitive measures was present but
weak. The authors concluded that this could be due to methodological issues.

7 Possible mechanism of cognitive enhancement during

meditation
How meditation may improve cognition still remains a perplexing question. The
pharmacologic ways of enhancing attention largely depend on inducing sympatho-
excitation. In contrast during meditation a sympatho-inhibition effect produces
attentional enhancement vis-e-vis physical relaxation. The following three mecha-
nisms appear to be appropriate to explain this paradoxical phenomenon.
1. Inherent cognitive re-structuring during the task of meditation (The neural
plasticity link)
2. The Consequence of relaxation response (The cytokine link)
3. The autonomic link
There are several studies on meditation and cognition points toward the role of neu-
roplasticity in cognitive enhancement after training in meditation (Yang et al., 2016).
This appears to be a plausible explanation for the long-term effects observed in
cognition. However, the molecular mechanism underlying this effect remains to
be elucidated. The cytokine link provides yet another dimension to the meditation
practice with reference to cognition enhancement. The relaxation is known to de-
crease cytokines especially the interleukin-1 (IL-1) (Keppel et al., 1993). It has been
shown earlier by various studies that the cytokines and cognition are associated. The
interleukin-1 (IL-1) along with other cytokines is associated with decreased cogni-
tive performance. In another study, a randomized controlled trial by Creswell et al.
(2016) tested a hypothesis whether mindfulness meditation training increases
default mode network activity and whether the resting-state functional connectivity
alterations prospectively explain improvements in interleukin-6 (IL-6). They found
 References 97

improved posterior cingulate cortex resting-state functional connectivity with left

dorso-lateral pre-frontal cortex. They also noted favorable alterations in IL-6 levels.
These alterations in resting state functional connectivity statistically explained 30%
of the overall mindfulness meditation training effects on IL-6 at follow-up. Thus,
there is an association between cognitive changes during meditation and cytokines,
IL-6. Cognitive abilities are closely related to the autonomic nervous system (ANS)
activity, since stress and relaxation have an impact of cognition. In general, there is
increased sympathetic drive while performing cognitive tasks, as cognitive tasks are
perceived as demanding situations (Duschek et al., 2009). Thus, the above discussed
three mechanisms are likely to involved in the Meditation and the cognition link,
operating at both physiological and pathological conditions.

8 The future research

The field of research in meditation and cognition remains exciting. There are several
fronts where the research should be continued. The difference between different
types of meditation from cognitive enhancement point of view is worth pursuing.
It will be worth pursuing to find which one of the two techniques is more useful
in for restoring the cognitive abilities in pathological state and aging. There are three
pertinent questions: First, how focused attention (FA) type meditation and open mon-
itoring (OM) type meditation differ during crucial events of intrusion detection and
thought detachment. With the availability of high-end technologies for high temporal
and spatial resolutions, there is the possibility that the findings from such studies will
throw light on mechanisms of meditation. The more interesting point would be to
explore the switching effect during intrusion/detachment. The activity switch may
serve as neural stimulus for next level learning and might serve as stimulus for neural
regeneration, which finally may enhance cognition for attentional tasks. The differ-
ent types of meditation practices may involve different neural representations. There
is a need to evolve a unified model or sub-set of models that can explain relaxation
and useful cognitive enhancement with reference to various types of meditative
practices.

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Further reading
Deussen P., Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Vol. 1, Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 978-
8120814684, pp. 298–299.