Recent scientific advances have revealed the potential synergistic effects of meditation and psychedelic substances.Research published in scientific report We reveal how the psychedelic compound psilocybin, when combined with open monitoring meditation, increases the depth of insight in experienced meditators. This enhancement appears to be mediated by changes in the brain’s organizational patterns.
Open monitoring meditation is a type of meditation that emphasizes broad, non-reactive awareness of moment-to-moment experience. Unlike focused meditation, which focuses attention on a single object such as the breath or a mantra, open monitoring encourages practitioners to remain aware of all experiences without attachment or judgment. This practice is thought to increase metacognition, or awareness of cognition itself.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain types of mushrooms. Psilocybin is known for its ability to induce profound changes in perceptual, emotional, and cognitive processes, and has been the subject of both traditional use in ritual contexts and modern scientific research. In clinical practice, psilocybin has shown promise in treating a variety of mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Its effects include disruption of normal thought patterns, potentially leading to increased psychological flexibility and openness.
The rationale for combining psilocybin and open monitoring meditation in this study stems from the hypothesis regarding the complementary nature of their effects on the brain and consciousness. Both meditation and psychedelics are thought to alter functional connectivity patterns in the brain. Meditation, through trained introspection and increased metaawareness, and psilocybin, through its pharmacological effects on serotonin receptors, profoundly alter perception and thinking.
Researchers from the University of Zurich aimed to investigate how the combination of psilocybin and meditation affects brain connectivity during meditation practices. They visualized and analyzed brain activity using a mathematical technique known as topological data analysis.
“I was interested in the technical part of the topic: how pure mathematics, and in particular topology, can be applied to extract important information from latent structures in data that cannot be revealed in other ways. ,” explained study author Berit Singer. , Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics. “Psychedelic neuroscience and mediation are of particular interest to me because I see that much research is needed to better understand the mechanisms of these substances and technologies, and this also makes them beneficial. Because we hope it will be useful for use in both individuals and society. ”
The study involved 36 healthy, experienced meditators matched for age, gender, previous meditation experience, and dispositional mindfulness. The focus of the study was a five-day silent meditation retreat. On his fourth day of this retreat, participants were administered either psilocybin or a placebo during their regular meditation practice.
To capture the effects of the intervention on brain activity, participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans both the day before and the day after the retreat. Each fMRI session included a sequence of resting state, focused meditation, and open monitoring meditation.
To analyze the data, the researchers employed a mapper algorithm. This is a technique used in topological data analysis to analyze and visualize high-dimensional data sets. This algorithm constructs a graphical representation known as a mapper shape graph that captures the global and local structure of the data. By applying this algorithm, the researchers mapped and quantified the relationships and dependencies between different meditative and resting states of the brain, and learned more about how these states interact and overlap. were able to uncover insights.
“We were surprised that the subject-specific mapper graphs were so different at first glance that they did not appear to have many similarities, but using appropriate graph measures (optimal transport distance and centrality) “When we describe and simplify them, their common structure is revealed and reversed. We see that it is very stable in both groups,” Singer said. “In other words, their common features are not obvious to the eye by looking at the subject-specific mapper graph, but can only be found after computing the topological features.”
After the meditation retreat, the degree centrality of nodes associated with open monitoring meditation increased significantly. This suggests that these brain regions became more connected to other regions after the retreat and psilocybin intake. The closeness centrality of nodes associated with open monitoring meditation also increased after the retreat. This means that these brain regions can spread information more efficiently throughout the brain network.
A key finding from this study was that psilocybin had a significant effect on brain connectivity patterns. Optimal transport distances, used to assess similarities between different brain states, showed that psilocybin caused significant changes in how different meditative states are connected.
Specifically, participants in the psilocybin group showed greater changes in the functional structure of their brains between resting state and open monitoring meditation compared to participants in the placebo group. This suggests that psilocybin enhances the brain’s ability to transition between different functional states during meditation.
This increase in differentiation was particularly pronounced for those experiencing positive derealization, a condition in which reality is perceived in a novel and often more meaningful way. Furthermore, perceived insight is strongly associated with loss of positive reality, and models that incorporate changes in brain connectivity show greater insight than models that only account for loss of positive reality. You provided a good prediction.
The findings suggest that psilocybin may increase the depth and quality of meditation by promoting a deeper withdrawal from normal consciousness and promoting states of openness and heightened awareness. . This can make your meditation practice more effective, especially in inducing states of deep introspection and expanded consciousness, which is the purpose of meditation.
“The key finding is that meditation and psilocybin likely form a useful synergy that brings about insight, and they do so by balancing each other’s effects,” Singer told SciPost. The study also highlights “the benefits of topology for analyzing data and revealing underlying structure,” Singer said. “This particular method provides an alternative and convenient way to examine brain imaging data.”
Although this study provides evidence that psilocybin can significantly alter the cognitive and perceptual effects of meditation, there are also limitations that should be considered. All participants were comprised of experienced meditators, which limits the generalizability of the results to a broader population, including novice meditators and individuals with no meditation experience. Additionally, the sample size of this study was relatively small, which may affect the statistical power and robustness of the results.
“The long-term goal is to link the topological structure and associated phenomenology of Mapper shape graphs with normal functional connectivity, similar to the work of Saggar et al. and Geniesse et al.,” Singer explained. “Another long-term goal is to conduct similar studies on other psychedelic substances to understand their common and distinct characteristics, especially in combination with mediation.Finally, the relationship between various psychedelics and meditative states It would be great to be able to understand situations and how they are related and how they interact.”
The study, “Psilocybin enhances insight in meditation: Perspectives on the global topology of brain imaging during meditation,” was co-authored by Berit Singer, Daniel Melling, Matthias Hirsch-Hoffmann, Lars Michels, Michael Komator, and Lukasz. Written by Smigielski, Dario Dornbierer, and Eric. Seyfritz, Franz X. Vollenweider, and Milan Scheidegger.
