Neuroscience 281 (2014) 195–201
INFLUENCE OF LONG-TERM SAHAJA YOGA MEDITATION PRACTICE
ON EMOTIONAL PROCESSING IN THE BRAIN: AN ERP STUDY
N. V. REVA, * S. V. PAVLOV, K. V. LOKTEV,
V. V. KORENYOK AND L. I. AFTANAS
Federal State Budgetary Institution ‘‘Scientific Research Institute
of Physiology and Basic Medicine’’ under the Siberian Branch of
the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Timakova Street
4, 630117 Novosibirsk, Russia
Abstract—Despite growing interest in meditation as a tool for
alternative therapy of stress-related and psychosomatic
diseases, brain mechanisms of beneficial influences of med-
itation practice on health and quality of life are still unclear.
We propose that the key point is a persistent change in
emotional functioning, specifically the modulation of the
early appraisal of motivational significance of events. The
main aim was to study the effects of long-term meditation
practice on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during
affective picture viewing. ERPs were recorded in 20 long-term
Sahaja Yoga meditators and 20 control subjects without
prior experience in meditation. The meditators’ mid-latency
(140–400 ms) ERPs were attenuated for both positive and
negative pictures (i.e. there were no arousal-related increases
in ERP positivity) and this effect was more prominent over the
right hemisphere. However, we found no differences in the
long latency (400–800 ms) responses to emotional images,
associated with meditation practice. In addition we found
stronger ERP negativity in the time window 200–300 ms for
meditators compared to the controls, regardless of picture
valence. We assume that long-term meditation practice
enhances frontal top-down control over fast automatic
salience detection, based on amygdala functions.
Ó 2014 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Key words: meditation, mindfulness, emotion, ERP, affective
images.
INTRODUCTION
Recent years have seen growing interest in meditation as
a tool for alternative therapy of stress-related and
*Corresponding author. Address: Laboratory Psychophysiology, Fed-
eral State Budgetary Institution ‘‘Scientific Research Institute of
Physiology and Basic Medicine’’ under the Siberian Branch of the
Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Timakova Street 4, 630117,
Novosibirsk, Russia. Tel: +7-383-335-98-55, +7-383-335-97-37;
fax: +7-383-335-97-54.
E-mail addresses: n.v.reva@physiol.ru, iph@physiol.ru (N. V. Reva).
Abbreviations: ANOVAs, analysis of variances; C, central; CP,
centroparietal; Cz, central midline; EEG, electroencephalography;
ERPs, event-related brain potentials; F, frontal; FC, frontocentral; Fz,
frontal midline; IAPS, International Affective Picture System; LPP, late
positive potential; P, parietal; P3a, early P300.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2014.09.053
0306-4522/Ó 2014 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
195
psychosomatic diseases (for reviews see Barnes and
Orme-Johnson, 2012; Chen et al., 2012; Hagins et al.,
2013; Khoury et al., 2013), although little is known about
underlying brain mechanisms. According to a transac-
tional model of stress and coping (Lazarus and
Folkman, 1984), individuals on an unconscious level, or
deliberately, produce appraisals of events with respect
to their importance for well-being and the availability of
resources necessary for coping with these events. When
a given stimulus is initially appraised as challenging,
harmful, or threatening, an activation of physiological sys-
tems involved in the stress response co-occurs with a
subjective experience of distress. A persistent trend of
overestimating the significance of the negative events
leads to excessive emotional reactivity and to wear-and-
tear of visceral systems (McEwen and Gianaros, 2010).
It is likely that the beneficial effects of meditation
practices on health may be mediated by reduction of
negative affect along with an increase in positive
emotional attitude toward oneself and others, i.e.
positive affectivity (Cahn and Polich, 2006; Wadlinger
and Isaacowitz, 2011). A plausible way to reach this state
is the reduction of the significance of negative events dur-
ing the evaluative stage of emotional response. Indeed,
the metacognitive stance of mindfulness, inherent in
many meditative styles, can moderate the impact of
potentially distressing psychological content. It may be
assumed that the process of mindfulness extricates atten-
tion from being fixated on evaluative language, enabling
nonjudgmental, metacognitive awareness of thoughts
and feelings, so one is able to let go of clinging to memo-
ries of the past and hopes and fears of the future, based
on habitual patterns of thought (Garland et al., 2009).
Therefore, we assume that due to meditation practice
the process of appraisal of an event’s motivational signif-
icance undergoes a change which allows an individual to
control emerging emotions; moreover, this change gradu-
ally becomes automatic.
The event-related brain potential (ERP) findings of
Sobolewski et al. (2011) provide some support for different
emotional processing in Buddhist meditation practitioners:
meditators were less affected by stimuli with adverse emo-
tional load (the effect of greater late positive potential (LPP)
amplitude for negative International Affective Picture Sys-
tem (IAPS) images was not replicated in the case of medi-
tators’ frontal scalp regions), while processing of positive
stimuli remained unaltered. In another ERP research1
1
The research was not published as a journal article.
196 N. V. Reva et al. / Neuroscience 281 (2014) 195–201
(Marhe, 2007) no effects of meditation on emotional pro-
cessing were indicated for Sudarshan Kriya Yoga. Thus,
the data obtained are insufficient to draw any conclusions
about the impact of meditation practice on the evaluative
component of emotional responses.
Therefore in this study we aimed to investigate the
influence of long-term Sahaja Yoga meditation on the
ERP response to affective pictorial stimuli. This
technique, more related to mindfulness than a
concentrative type of meditation, is characterized by a
mental state of ‘‘thoughtless awareness’’, or ‘‘mental
silence’’ and is accompanied by the experience of bliss.
In general, the outcome of this meditative technique, as
most others, is a sense of relaxation and positive mood
and a feeling of benevolence toward oneself and others
(Rai, 1993; Aftanas and Golocheikine, 2001; Manocha
et al., 2012). Moreover, in recent eye-tracking research
the shift of attention toward happy faces was obtained
for Sahaja Yoga meditators, evidencing positive affective
bias (Pavlov et al., 2014a).
Because it was recently shown that within the scope of
standard categories the amplitude of the LPP significantly
depends on the image content (Anokhin et al., 2006;
Weinberg and Hajcak, 2010; Ferri et al., 2012), we used
a homogeneous set of images depicting people (the
objects for empathy) in appropriate life situations
(Pavlov et al., 2014b).
We assume that in the case of negative emotions the
arousal-related increase in positive components of ERP,
in particular LPP, will be reduced, reflecting less
motivational significance of this stimuli for Sahaja Yoga
meditators. Since long-term meditation practice favors
developing of positive affective bias, we assume higher
ERP reactivity (increase in positivity) in response to
positive images in Sahaja Yoga meditators versus
controls.
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES
Participants
Two groups of healthy right-handed males participated in
our study. The experimental group included 20
experienced long-term Sahaja Yoga meditators
(meditators, mean age = 36.30, SD = 9.41; mean
meditation experience = 11.45 years, SD = 4.35) and
20 age-matched healthy controls with no meditation
experience (controls, mean age = 33.55, SD = 5.48).
The age difference between meditators and controls
was insignificant (two tailed t-test, t = 0.99, p < 0.33).
All the subjects gave written informed consent and were
paid for participation.
Stimuli
One hundred and sixty images (151 from free websites, 9
from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS,
Lang et al., 1999)), including 32 neutral (people in emo-
tionally neutral situations), 64 negative (loss, accidents),
and 64 positive (attractive women, family) photos were
selected for the study. All pictures included people with
well-distinguishable facial expressions, experiencing
negative or positive emotions or being in a neutral
emotional state.
Procedure
It should be noted that this study was a part of the
emotional regulation study, so rationale for block-wise
stimulus presentation and cueing was defined by task
requirements (for details see Pavlov et al., 2014b). Only
unregulated trials were analyzed in this study.
During the experiment participants sat in a
comfortable chair in a dimmed room. After attachment
of the sensors, a 7-min resting period (2 min with closed
eyes and 5 min with open eyes) was recorded. Then,
participants were given instructions describing the
experimental procedure and performed a practice block
(not used for further analyses) including 10 trials. Each
trial was composed of four events: cue word (look,
increase, decrease) (2.5 s), image (neutral, negative,
positive) (5 s), subjective emotional report (3–4 s), blank
screen (2.5 s). While the image remained on the screen,
participants performed the operations specified by the
prior instructional cue. During unregulated trials (cue
word ‘‘look’’) participants were instructed simply to look
at the image and let themselves respond naturally. All
trials were broken down into four experimental blocks.
Each of the four experimental blocks included five
sequentially presented series, consisting of eight trials
with similar instructional cues (i.e., eight unregulated
neutral, eight unregulated positive, eight unregulated
negative, eight regulated positive, and eight regulated
negative trials). Series of sequences were
counterbalanced across blocks. There was a break of
5 min after each experimental block.
MEASURES
Subjective emotional report
After the image offset, two dimensions of valence and
arousal (in a nine-point scale for each dimension) were
assessed using a computerized Self-Assessment
Manikin (SAM) (Bradley and Lang, 1994).
Electroencephalography (EEG)
EEG recordings (62-channel, bandpass 0.08–120 Hz,
sampling frequency 1000 Hz) were obtained
monopolarly using the BrainProduct Acquisition 1.1
program and a QuickAmp (Brain Products GmBh,
Munich, Germany) system via a modified 64-channel
cap with inbuilt Ag/AgCl electrodes (QuikCap,
NeuroSoft, Inc., Charlotte, NC, USA). A common
average reference was used. Electrode impedances
were kept at <5 kO. Horizontal and vertical
electrooculographic activity (EOG) was measured in a
bipolar configuration laterally at the outer canthi of each
eye and above and below the right eye, off-line
correction of EEG recordings was performed with
Gratton’s algorithm (Gratton et al., 1983). ERP epochs
were extracted from 200 to 2000 ms relative to stimulus
presentation onset, visually checked for residual oculo-
motor, myographic, motor, DC-drift and other artifacts,
 N. V. Reva et al. / Neuroscience 281 (2014) 195–201
and low-pass filtered at 20 Hz (48 dB/oct). Segments
were baseline corrected to the 200-ms pre-stimulus per-
iod. Stimulus-locked ERPs were constructed by sepa-
rately averaging trials for each emotion category in the
free-viewing condition and for positive and negative pic-
tures that followed reappraisal instructions. The ERP
was quantified as mean level of activity within five sepa-
rate time windows: 80–140 ms for N100, 140–200 ms
for N170 and P200; 200–300 ms for N200 and early
P300 (P3a), 300–400 ms for late P300 (P3b), and 400–
800 ms for LPP. The window analysis was preferred to
peak analysis for the following reasons. Contrary to
strictly defined cognitive paradigms, in case of complex
emotional visual stimuli the main ERP components may
overlap, resulting in difficulties in component recognition.
Moreover, the recognizability of the components can differ
systematically depending on group affiliation. The window
analysis makes it possible to overcome these problems
and to test whether ERP segments without consistent
peaks are statistically different across groups or condi-
tions (Hoormann et al., 1998). For statistical analyses
the data of 25 electrodes, less sensitive to low-frequency
artifacts, were used (F3, F1, frontal midline (Fz), F2, F4,
FC3, FC1, FCz, FC2, FC4, C3, C1, central midline (Cz),
C2, C4, CP3, CP1, CPz, CP2, CP4, P3, P1, Pz, P2, P4).
Data analysis. Group differences in the effects of
emotional salience on the subjective emotional report
were analyzed for valence and arousal scores using
repeated measures analysis of variances (ANOVAs)
with factors of Group (meditators, controls) and Emotion
Category (neutral, negative and positive).
Effects of emotional salience on ERP were analyzed
for each time window using repeated measures
ANOVAs with Emotion Category (neutral, negative and
positive), Caudality (frontal—F (F3, F1, Fz, F2, F4),
frontocentral—FC (FC3, FC1, FCz, FC2, FC4), central—
C (C3, C1, Cz, C2, C4), centroparietal—CP (CP3, CP1,
CPz, CP2, CP4), parietal—P (P3, P1, Pz, P2, P4)) and
Sagittality (left lateral (F3, FC3, C3, CP3, P3), left medial
(F1, FC1, C1, CP1, P1), medial (Fz, FCz, Cz, CPz, Pz),
right medial (F2, FC2, C2, CP2, P2), right lateral (F4,
FC4, C4, CP4, P4)) as within-subject factors and Group
(meditators, control) as the independent factor.
For all analyses, degrees of freedom were
Greenhouse–Geisser corrected where appropriate. All
the post hoc comparisons were evaluated by means of
the Tukey test. Effect sizes are reported using partial
eta squared (g2p ).
RESULTS
Subjective emotional report
Mean valence and arousal scores for neutral, negative
and positive images for meditators and controls are
shown in Table 1. ANOVAs did not reveal significant
effects of group and Group  Emotion Category
interactions, but revealed significant effects of Emotion
Category for valence (F(2,76) = 304.10, p < .001,
gp2 = .89) and arousal (F(2,76) = 46.38, p < .001,
gp2 = .55), showing that both meditators and controls
197
rated positive images as significantly more pleasant as
compared to negative and neutral, and negative images
were rated as significantly more unpleasant than neutral
(all p < .001). Arousal was rated significantly higher for
positive and negative images in comparison to neutral
images (all p < .001). No differences in arousal ratings
were found between positive and negative images (all
p > .54).
ERP
For the 80–140-ms time window no effects or interactions
with Group or Emotional Category factors were obtained
(Fig. 1).
The main effect of Group was revealed for the time
window 200–300 ms (F(1,38) = 7.21; p < 0.011,
gp2 = .16), evidencing more negative potential values
for meditators regardless of stimulus category (Fig. 2).
In spite of non-significant interactions with topographic
factors, the ANOVAs for separate electrodes showed
that group differences were located predominantly over
central cortical regions (C3, C1, Cz, C2, C4, CP3, CP1;
all p < 0.05).
The Group  Emotional Category interactions were
revealed for 140–200-ms (F(2,76) = 3.41; p < 0.041,
gp2 = .08) and 200–300-ms (F(2,76) = 3.54; p < 0.035,
gp2 = .09) time windows, along with the Group 
Emotional Category  Sagittality interactions for 140–
200-ms (F(8,304) = 2.78; p < 0.026, gp2 = .07), 200–
300-ms (F(8,304) = 3.30; p < 0.014, gp2 = .08), and
300–400-ms (F(8,304) = 2.89; p < 0.020, gp2 = .07)
time windows. According to these interactions the
arousal-related increases in positivity were less
pronounced in meditators than in controls mainly in the
right hemisphere (Fig. 3). The latter was confirmed with
the Group  Emotional Category interactions, revealed
in the right hemisphere both for medial (140–200 ms:
F(2,76) = 8.51; p < 0.001, gp2 = .18; 200–300 ms:
F(2,76) = 8.96; p < 0.001, gp2 = .19; 300–400 ms:
F(2,76) = 4.98; p < 0.011, gp2 = .12) and lateral (140–
200ms: F(2,76) = 5.44; p < 0.007, gp2 = .13; 200–300
ms: F(2,76) = 7.32; p < 0.002, gp2 = .16; 300–400 ms:
F(2,76) = 6.25; p < 0.004, gp2 = .14) cortical regions.
Post-hoc analyses revealed that in the time window
140–200 ms controls demonstrated a higher level of
potential for positive stimuli in comparison with neutral
ones (p < 0.001) and a lack of difference between
negative and neutral stimuli, whereas meditators showed
no difference between positive and neutral stimuli along
with a lower potential level for negative stimuli in
comparison with neutral ones (p < 0.027). For the time
windows 200–300 ms and 300–400 ms controls showed
higher positivity for both types of emotional stimuli in
comparison to neutral ones (all p < 0.001), whereas no
significant differences among stimulus categories were
obtained for meditators. Concerning the left hemisphere
and the midline only common effects of Emotional
Category were revealed, on the whole evidencing higher
positivity level for emotional stimuli than for neutral.
For the 400–800-ms time window no effects or
interactions with Group factor were obtained, although
the effects of Emotional Category (F(2,76) = 54.10;
198 N. V. Reva et al. / Neuroscience 281 (2014) 195–201

Table 1. Mean valence and arousal scores for neutral, negative and positive images for meditators and controls

Group Controls (N = 20) Meditators (N = 20)

Images Valence Arousal Valence Arousal
M SD M SD M SD M SD

Neutral 5.13 0.43 3.23 2.15 5.75 0.95 2.80 2.04

Negative 3.20 0.67 5.26 2.10 3.07 0.76 4.80 2.25
Positive 7.24 0.79 5.86 1.88 7.53 0.80 4.42 2.13
Note: M, mean values; SD, standard deviation.

Fig. 1. ERP waveforms for neutral, negative and positive images

from midline leads, averaged across all subjects.

Fig. 3. Difference ERP waves (emotional vs. neutral) from right

hemisphere leads for the meditation and control group.

Fig. 2. (A) ERP waveforms of the meditation and control group from
the Cz lead averaged across emotional categories. (B) Difference
map (meditation vs. control) for the 200–300-ms time window.
p < 0.0001, gp2 = .59) and Emotional Category 
Caudality interaction (F(8,304) = 24.28; p < 0.0001,
gp2 = .39) were highly significant. Post-hoc analyses
revealed that both types of emotional stimuli elicited
more positive potential levels than neutral ones (Fig. 1).
For the positive stimuli significant differences were
located across the head except parietal regions (all
p < 0.0001), for the negative stimuli – over central,
centroparietal and parietal areas (all p < 0.0001). The
higher potential level for positive stimuli in comparison
to negative stimuli were revealed over frontal,
frontocentral and central cortical regions (all p < 0.009),
along with the lower levels over parietal loci (p < 0.002).
DISCUSSION
In the present study we found no differences between
long-term Sahaja Yoga meditators and controls for the
time interval, corresponding to LPP (400–800 ms),
however, we revealed between-group ERP effects in the
earlier time windows (140–400 ms). In the time window
200–300 ms predominantly over the central sites the
meditation group demonstrated higher mean negative
amplitudes than the control group, regardless of picture
valence. We also found that meditators’ mid-latency
(140–400 ms) ERPs were attenuated for both positive
and negative pictures (there was no increase in the
positivity or decrease in negativity of emotional ERP in
comparison to neutral pictures) and these effects were
more prominent over the right hemisphere.
The former finding is in accordance with the ERP
research of Sudarshan Kriya meditators by Marhe
(2007), where group differences were found at central
 N. V. Reva et al. / Neuroscience 281 (2014) 195–201
(higher negative amplitudes) and parietooccipital (higher
positive amplitudes) brain regions in the 200–400-ms time
window for pictorial (IAPS) stimuli regardless of its
valence. The ERP component, which contributes most
to negativity in the 200–300-ms time window, apparently
belongs to the family of attention-related N2 components
that are maximal over frontal or central scalp sites when
elicited by visual stimuli. In the Pritchard et al. (1991) clas-
sification scheme, the N2b was larger for nontargets than
for targets, but elicited by both, had a central scalp distri-
bution in both the auditory and visual modality, and was
accompanied by a P3a. Patel and Azzam (2005) defined
the N2b as a negativity of central cortical distribution seen
only during conscious stimulus attention. Folstein and
Van Petten (2008) adopt neutral terms of anterior N2,
referring to a negative-going wave with a frontal or central
scalp maximum and corresponding to Pritchard et al.’s
(1991) N2b. They further divide N2 subcomponents into
the deviance-related or novelty N2 (for which they advo-
cate the name ‘‘N2b’’) and the control-related N2. It is
notable that in young adults, but not in older adults, the
novel stimuli elicited a very large N2, which was of maxi-
mal amplitude at the Cz, slightly smaller at the Fz, and
barely visible at both the prefrontal and occipital midline
sites (Fpz and Oz) (Folstein and Van Petten, 2008). Tak-
ing into account that long-term meditation practice
improves attention toward cognitive tasks (Srinivasan
and Baijal, 2007; Lutz et al., 2008, 2009; Chiesa et al.,
2011; van Leeuwen et al., 2012; Moore et al., 2012), we
can interpret higher central negativity in meditators as
an increased N2b component, characterizing the
enhanced efficiency of selective information processing
(Patel and Azzam, 2005; Folstein and Van Petten, 2008).
It is well established that emotional arousal elicits a
positive-going waveform, and the underlying factor
determining amplitude modulations is selective attention
toward objects within the affective image that are
assumed to be of intrinsic relevance (for review see
Olofsson et al., 2008). Processing within the 150–300-
ms latency range mainly reflects automatic (‘‘bottom-
up’’) stimulus discrimination, whereas the later segments
of the affective ERP (i.e. P300 and LPP/slow wave) are
sensitive to ‘‘top-down’’ control. The latter is confirmed
by modulations of these components by concurrent cogni-
tive tasks or by emotional regulation such as reappraisal
(Polich, 2007; Olofsson et al., 2008; Hajcak et al.,
2010). Therefore we can assume that long-term Sahaja
Yoga meditators are characterized by changes in auto-
matic ‘‘bottom-up’’ processes of salience detection. It is
known that early detection of motivational salience is
mediated by amygdales, controlled by frontal/prefrontal
cortical regions (Morrison and Salzman, 2010; Pessoa,
2010; Ochsner et al., 2012). Moreover, the right inferior
frontal cortex in humans is critical for inhibiting response
tendencies in a variety of tasks (Aron et al., 2004, 2014;
Ochsner et al., 2012). Neurophysiologically we can
expect that meditative attentional trainings will lead to
sustained changes in the interactions between amygdales
and frontal cortical regions, with the redistribution of the
leading role in favor of the latter. Indeed, recent
neuroimaging research demonstrates activation of frontal
199
and prefrontal areas during the meditation state (Cahn
and Polich, 2006). Moreover, the longitudinal decrease
in right amygdala activation in response to affective
images was revealed after training subjects in mindful-
attention meditation (Desbordes et al., 2012).
The peculiar process inherent in most meditation
practices is the so-called labeling, i.e. verbal non-
emotional categorization of incoming external
information. The process of verbally labeling affective
stimuli may disrupt or inhibit automatic affective
responses, reducing their intensity and duration along
with more effective cognitive [detached] recognition of
emotions. According to functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) data an experimental task consisting in
rating or verbally labeling emotions reduced activation in
the amygdala and activated the right ventrolateral
prefrontal cortex compared to passive viewing or to a
match-to-sample task (Hariri et al., 2000; Taylor et al.,
2003; Lieberman et al., 2007). Moreover, strong negative
associations were found between areas of prefrontal cor-
tex and right amygdala responses during affect labeling in
participants high in mindfulness but not in participants low
in mindfulness (Creswell et al., 2007). Thus, we can
assume that labeling is the suitable candidate process
for mediating mindfulness effects on early appraisals of
emotional information.
It should be noted that the data obtained contradict
with our hypothesis about higher positivity of ERP
components in response to positive stimuli in
meditators. The possible explanation is that meditators
focus on internally generated positive experience (Rai,
1993). It is noteworthy, that a recent eye-tracking study
of this sample of meditators revealed positive affective
bias (preference of happy faces) during maintenance of
attention, but not in initial orienting (Pavlov et al., 2014a).
Since we found no difference in LPP (400–800 ms)
response to arousing images between meditators and
control participants, we believe that voluntary attention,
initial memorization and experience remain unchanged
in meditators (Olofsson et al., 2008). The lack of group dif-
ferences in subjective ratings is in agreement with this
interpretation. Apparently the emotional stability of Sahaja
Yoga meditators can hardly be seen as general flattening
of the emotional responses to external events, but rather
as the ability to prevent intense experiences and full-
scale, potentially harmful, physiological reactions in
response to strong stimuli. Indeed, reduced emotional
arousal, indexed by alpha and gamma EEG oscillations,
was shown for Sahaja Yoga meditators during aversive
film viewing (Aftanas and Golosheykin, 2005). We
hypothesize that emotional events of moderate intensity
(like those used in this study) can freely pass appraisal
gates, accompanied by only transient early ERP modula-
tions, whereas highly arousing stimuli would heavily acti-
vate regulatory mechanisms, including LPP reduction.
As a whole our study provides support to the concept
that meditation practices improve attentional control and
capacities for emotional regulation. We obtained ERP
evidence that long-term Sahaja Yoga meditation
practice enhances frontal top-down control over fast
automatic salience detection, based on amygdala
200 N. V. Reva et al. / Neuroscience 281 (2014) 195–201

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(Accepted 25 September 2014)

(Available online 2 October 2014)