What a Brain Study of Buddhist Monks Actually Found

Meditation changed measurable brain-signal patterns while 12 experienced Buddhist monks practiced two forms of meditation inside a magnetoencephalography scanner. The study found greater signal complexity during both practices than during eyes-closed rest, plus differences between the two practices on some measures of brain dynamics.

That is the useful finding. It does not show that meditation improves health, intelligence, learning, mood, or longevity. It also cannot establish that years of meditation caused permanent changes in the participants' brains.

What study is this?

The research was published in Neuroscience of Consciousness in November 2025 under the title “Meditation induces shifts in neural oscillations, brain complexity, and critical dynamics: novel insights from MEG.” The paper is also indexed by PubMed.

The researchers recruited 12 male monastics from Santacittarama, a Theravada Buddhist monastery in Italy. Their average age was 38.7 years, with an age range of 25 to 58. Reported lifetime meditation practice ranged from 2,375 to 26,600 hours, with a mean of 15,343 hours.

This was a small study of a rare, highly experienced population. It was not a representative sample of everyone who meditates.

What did the monks do?

Each participant completed two established practices:

• Samatha, a focused-attention practice in which attention is maintained on an object such as the breath or a bodily sensation.
• Vipassana, an open-monitoring practice involving broad awareness of ongoing experience.

The experiment used six-minute meditation blocks. Each meditation block was preceded and followed by three minutes of non-meditative, eyes-closed rest. The sequence was repeated three times for each practice, producing three Samatha blocks, three Vipassana blocks, and six rest blocks per participant.

Participants sat with their eyes closed. They were instructed not to use recitation, deliberate breath manipulation, visualization, or another discursive strategy.

What did researchers measure?

The team used a 165-channel MEG system. MEG detects magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain and offers fine timing information. The researchers combined MEG recordings with each participant's MRI scan to estimate where measured signals originated.

The analysis went beyond familiar labels such as alpha, beta, or gamma “brain waves.” It examined:

• spectral power in different frequency bands;
• the slope of the brain signal's aperiodic, or 1/f, component;
• long-range temporal correlations;
• several mathematical measures of signal complexity;
• a deviation-from-criticality measure intended to describe how neural activity relates to a proposed critical operating point.

These are technical descriptions of recorded brain dynamics. They are not direct measurements of attention, happiness, learning ability, or clinical health.

What did the study find?

Both meditation conditions showed higher neural-signal complexity than the resting condition on some measures. The researchers also reported widespread reductions in gamma-band long-range temporal correlations and changes in the 1/f slope.

One criticality-related measure separated Vipassana from Samatha. The authors interpret that result as evidence that the two practices may involve distinguishable brain dynamics rather than one generic “meditation state.”

The gamma result deserves special attention because it cuts against a popular meditation narrative. After separating oscillatory activity from the broadband 1/f component, the researchers observed lower, not higher, gamma power during meditation. They suggest that some earlier reports of increased gamma might partly reflect broadband changes rather than a rise in gamma oscillations alone.

The study therefore supports a careful conclusion: in these participants, Samatha and Vipassana were associated with measurable, partly distinct changes in moment-to-moment brain activity compared with rest.

What the results do not prove

The experiment did not include a non-meditating control group. Its strongest comparisons were within the same monks: meditation versus rest, and one meditation condition versus the other.

It cannot answer whether:

• years of meditation produced the observed patterns;
• people with these neural characteristics are more likely to become long-term meditators;
• beginners would show the same results;
• the findings generalize to women, other age groups, other Buddhist traditions, or secular mindfulness;
• the measured signal changes improve cognition, mental health, learning, or physical health;
• meditation permanently changed brain structure.

The study measured brain activity during short experimental sessions. It did not test treatment outcomes or compare meditation with therapy, medication, exercise, or another intervention.

Important limitations

The sample contained only 12 people, all male and drawn from one monastery and tradition. A small, specialized sample limits statistical power and generalizability.

Eyes-closed rest is also an imperfect baseline for expert meditators. A highly practiced monk may continue to display meditation-like attention during a nominal rest period. That could make the conditions less distinct.

The analysis tested many complex signal features and source-localized MEG estimates. Although the paper used statistical controls, the findings still need replication in larger independent samples. Measures such as “criticality” are active research concepts, not settled clinical indicators.

Finally, this was an observational, cross-sectional study of experts. A randomized longitudinal design following beginners over time would be better suited to testing whether training causes particular changes.

Why the study matters

The paper adds two useful ideas to meditation research.

First, it treats meditation as a family of practices rather than a single mental condition. The difference between focused attention and open monitoring is not merely philosophical; it may be detectable in brain dynamics.

Second, it shows why careful signal analysis matters. Separating periodic oscillations from the broadband 1/f background changed the interpretation of gamma activity. That is a methodological contribution even if the broader implications remain uncertain.

The work may help researchers design better experiments about attention and conscious states. It does not, by itself, justify therapeutic or performance claims.

Bottom line

A small study found that 12 highly experienced Buddhist monks showed different MEG signal patterns during Samatha meditation, Vipassana meditation, and eyes-closed rest. Both practices were associated with increased signal complexity on some measures, and the two practices differed on a criticality-related measure.

The experiment shows an association between meditation state and measured brain activity in this group. It does not prove lasting brain rewiring, causation from long-term practice, or benefits for health, learning, or well-being.

Sources

• Pascarella A, et al. “Meditation induces shifts in neural oscillations, brain complexity, and critical dynamics: novel insights from MEG.” Neuroscience of Consciousness. 2025.
• PubMed record and abstract, PMID 41287816.
• Open full-text record, PMCID PMC12640546.
• WIRED's secondary report.