Mind oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) response to viewing nature, artwork, and meditation movies. Credit score: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1440177
Previous analysis means that meditation and publicity to artwork or nature can positively impression individuals’s well-being and mind well being, in some instances even decreasing stress and supporting the processing of feelings. But most previous research centered on every of those experiences individually, reasonably than evaluating their results on mind exercise.
Researchers at College of California Los Angeles got down to study the mind activation patterns related to a visualization-based transcendental meditation of connecting to the cosmic soul and evaluate them to these from individuals watching evocative digital artwork or nature movies.
Their findings, revealed in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, counsel that these several types of transcending experiences immediate totally different mind activation patterns.
“We recruited nine healthy adults with low levels of stress and anxiety and exposed them in the fMRI scanner to the videos of digital art by Rafik Anandol, nature videos of the national parks and compared these conditions to rest and meditation,” Dr. Helen Lavretsky, senior writer of the paper, advised Medical Xpress.
“We trained participants to perform a transcendental meditation on the cosmic soul while watching star nebula videos. Watching videos was the common component between the conditions to control for visual stimulation that activated the visual cortex.”
After educating 9 individuals a transcendental meditation apply, the researchers requested them to finish this apply with their head inside an fMRI scanner in order that they may file their mind exercise. The workforce additionally recorded the individuals’ mind exercise within the scanner whereas they had been watching nature movies and whereas they had been watching digital artwork created by the Turkish-born visible artist Refik Anadol, who’s a school member at UCLA.
“We found that compared to rest, meditation led to blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) increases in the bilateral lateral occipital and fusiform gyri, as well as the right postcentral gyrus and hippocampus,” defined Dr. Lavretsky.
“Compared to viewing AI-generated digital art, increased BOLD responses during meditation were observed in the left parietal and central operculum, and right pre- and postcentral gyri, and compared to nature, they were observed in the left parietal operculum, bilateral postcentral and supramarginal gyri, and bilateral lateral occipital cortices.”
With their newly devised experimental paradigm, the researchers had been in a position to discover the distinctive neural signatures of three distinct “transcending” human experiences that would maintain some potential for decreasing stress.
Their outcomes counsel that the mind areas activated by these three forms of experiences differ considerably, which may assist to higher perceive the neural processes by which they may convey pleasure and increase well-being.
“Compared to rest, meditation showed brain activation in regions associated with object, sensory, and memory processing,” stated Dr. Lavretsky.
“Compared to watching nature videos, meditation led to activity in bilateral sensory and object processing areas, as well as a left sensory integration region (error monitoring), while when compared to watching art videos, meditation showed activity in left sensory integration and right sensorimotor regions.”
Whereas the pattern of individuals who took half within the latest undertaking is comparatively small, the outcomes gathered by these researchers may encourage extra analysis research assessing the neural signatures and therapeutic results of transcendental meditation, observing nature and publicity to digital artwork.
In the meantime, Dr. Lavretsky and her colleagues are planning to conduct extra research of their very own, to additional discover the potential of contemplative experiences for decreasing stress and bettering well-being.
“Further studies are needed to delineate the distinct neural signature and therapeutic effects of inner contemplation using human connection to art, nature, or meditative transcendent practices, in the brain and its potential in clinical applications,” added Dr. Lavretsky.
“In our next works, we will continue to address the role of spiritual neuroscience and neuroesthetics in documenting the neural mechanisms of human experience of transcendence, and in seeking therapeutic solutions for stress-related disorders.”
Extra data:
Beatrix Krause-Sorio et al, Your mind on artwork, nature, and meditation: a pilot neuroimaging research, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1440177
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