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<p>This two-year longitudinal study investigated the effect of participation in a special university curriculum, whose principal innovative feature is twice-daily practice of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi program, on performance on Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT) and Hick's reaction time. These measures are known to be correlated with general intelligence. One hundred college men and women were the subjects—45 from Maharishi International University (MIU) and 55 from the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). The experimental group (MIU) improved significantly on the CFIT (t=2.79, P<0.005); choice reaction time (t=9.10, P<0.0001); SD of choice reaction time (t=11.39, P<0.0001), and simple reaction time (t=2.11, P<0.025) over two years compared to the control group, which showed no improvement. Possible confounds of subject's age, education level, level of interest in meditation, father's education level, and father's annual income were controlled for using analysis of covariance and stepwise regression. The results replicate the findings of previous longitudinal studies on intelligence test scores at MIU, and indicate that participation in the MIU curriculum results in improvements in measures related to general intelligence.</p>
Zotero Collections:
- Practices of Hindu Contemplation,
- Contemplation by Applied Subject,
- Contemplation by Tradition,
- Scientific Studies of Transcendental Meditation,
- Transcendental Meditation (TM),
- Theories of Learning and Contemplation,
- Higher Education and Contemplation,
- Education and Contemplation,
- Hindu Contemplation
Transcendental Meditation (TM®) is derived from ancient yogic teachings. Both short- and long-term physiological correlates of TM® practice have been studied. EEG effects include increased alpha, theta, and gamma frequencies and increased coherence and synchrony. Neuronal hypersynchrony is also a cardinal feature of epilepsy, and subjective psychic symptoms, apnea, and myoclonic jerking are characteristic of both epileptic seizures and meditative states. Clinical vignettes have highlighted the potential risk of human kindling from repetitive meditation in persons practicing TM®, but clinical studies of similar techniques suggest that meditation may also be a potential antiepileptic therapy. Future clinical studies of meditating subjects using video/EEG monitoring are warranted to determine whether behavioral phenomena have an underlying epileptic basis, and prospective clinical trials of TM® in subjects with well-delineated epilepsy syndromes are necessary to establish the safety of this technique and its potential efficacy for seizure reduction and improvement of quality of life.
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