Professor N. N. Lyubimov of the Moscow Brain Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences found that during practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, when a light somatosensory stimulus was applied to the skin, the early components (less than 100 milliseconds) of the somatosensory evoked potentials of the brain, which are associated with sensory input, are more widely distributed across brain structures — both in the hemisphere where the response usually occurs and in the opposite hemisphere. (Please refer to chart below.)
This finding indicates that during practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, “there is an increase in the area of the cortex taking part in the perception of specific information and an increase in the functional relationship between the two hemispheres” (1).
High levels of EEG coherence measured during Transcendental Meditation are significantly correlated with:
- Higher creativity
- Greater efficiency in learning new concepts
- More principled moral reasoning
- Higher verbal intelligence (IQ)
- Less neuroticism
- Higher academic achievement
- Clearer experiences of Transcendental Consciousness
- Greater neurological efficiency (faster spinal reflex recovery)
References:
- Program Abstracts of the International Symposium “Consciousness and Brain,” Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, p. 19, 1992.
- International Journal of Neuroscience 13: 211–217, 1981; 15: 151–157, 1981; Scientific Research on Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme: Collected Papers, Volume 1: 208–212, 1977; Volume 4: 2245–2266, 1989.