F-VEPs IN ZEN MEDITATION
Abstract
The observation of the inner-light perception in deep Zen meditation14 has aroused our attention. Based on the recording of F-VEPs (flash visual evoked potentials), this study was thus designed to investigate the characteristics of visual nervous pathway for the Zen-meditation practitioners (experimental group), in comparison with that for the normal, healthy subjects (control group). Flash stimuli were applied before, during and after meditation/relaxation in experimental/control subjects. We focused on the F-VEPs at the occipital site Oz, central site Cz and frontal site Fz. Our results show that amplitudes of late latency components N3-P3 and P3-N4 at Oz decrease for the experimental subjects during meditation, whereas they increase in the control group. Both Cz and Fz amplitudes increase during meditation, yet decrease during relaxation for the control group. The latencies of some components were increased under relaxation in control group, yet little variation (except P2) is observed in the meditators. We also applied discrete wavelet transform to F-VEPs to analyze the frequency components. Our results showed that delta, theta and alpha components increased during meditation at some specific time periods. According to our findings, Zen meditation induces particular effects on the visual nervous system and cortex that are distinct from the normal relaxation.
