Spontaneous pupillary oscillations increase during mindfulness meditation

Purchase Subscribe Save Share Reprints Request Top Spontaneous pupillary oscillations increase during mindfulness meditation Antonella Pomè David C. Burr 3 Annalisa Capuozzo Paola Binda Show footnotes DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.07.064 PlumX Metrics Summary References Article Info Related Articles Comments Summary A significant body of literature has shown that pupil size varies with cognitive and perceptual states [ 1 , 2 ]. Furthermore, the pupil diameter oscillates spontaneously at low frequencies, sometimes referred to as pupillary hippus [ 3 , 4 ] . Oscillation amplitude varies with many neural factors, including arousal and cortical excitability. Here we show that pupillary oscillations are modulated by mindfulness meditation, increasing by 53% compared to pre- and post-meditation baselines. The effect occurs only in trained meditators and is specific for low frequencies (below 1 Hz), with delta frequencies (1–5 Hz) unchanged. The study suggests that pupil size may be a useful marker of the altered cortical state during meditation.