Computational analysis of cortical EEG biosignals and neural dynamics underlying an integrated mind-body relaxation technique

Abstract

Abstract Recent advances in brain computer interfaces (BCI) have brought paradigm shifts in pre-clinical neuroscience research relating various levels of information abstraction in brain. Recent years have seen several neuro electrophysiology studies on traditional and cultural stress reduction methods especially, related to short duration practices that can alleviate workplace stress. With stress reduction using sustainable methods in context, this paper reports on the analysis of biosignals for understanding the neural dynamics in human subjects practicing traditional relaxation techniques using electroencephalography (EEG) technique. The study was conducted among 20 healthy volunteering undergraduate students. Students were randomized as experimental group (N=10), provided yoga and meditation training for 8 weeks, and control group (N=10) with no experience on yoga or meditation. As a reference for analyzing the effect of relaxation techniques in daily life activities, three cognitive tasks, namely, word memory task, psychomotor vigilance task, and steady hand-game task were performed by participants as a pre-EEG recording task. EEG recordings were taken for 160 seconds in eyes-opened relaxed state in a dimly-lit sound-proof environment. In experimental group, after practicing integrated yoga-meditation technique for 8 weeks, a post EEG recording was taken. Relating several functional areas of the brain, cortical activation of the α, β, γ and θ rhythms in the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes of the brain with significant power spectral density variations in experiment group indicating diversity in brain patterns among week-1 to week-8 practitioners was observed. This short-term study indicates the plausibility of integrated yoga-meditation as sustainable relaxation techniques that can influence in improving the coordination in daily life tasks.