| dc.description.abstract | Hypnosis and meditation have long remained stigmatized as mystical or esoteric
practices, but the number of neuroimaging studies involving meditation and hypnosis
has increased considerably in recent years, allowing brain function during these
practices to be investigated as never before possible. Meditation, which can be defined
as a form of mental training aimed at improving an individual's core psychological
abilities, seems to have much in common with hypnosis, which can be defined as a
procedure in which a subject called a "hypnotist" suggests changes in another
individual's experience. The subjective experiences of hypnosis are in many ways
similar to those of meditation, which has already been indicated by verbal accounts of
some experienced meditators who have been hypnotized and of subjects experienced
in self-hypnosis who have begun to meditate. This paper aims to compare the
neurobiological processes of meditation and hypnosis through a literature review of
articles that have made such comparisons. For this purpose, 15 articles were selected,
being original studies or narrative reviews on neurobiological aspects of hypnosis and
meditation. Electroencephalography studies indicate a predominance of theta waves
in both practices, and neuroimaging studies show the importance of the anterior
cingulate cortex, prefrontal cortex, and insula for hypnosis and meditation, and involve
areas involved with imagery and the default mode, salience, and executive control
networks. The way in which some of these areas and networks are activated seems to
differ between practices, although the results are still quite inconclusive and in some
cases contradictory. | |
