Hipnose e meditação: um comparativo de processos neurobiológicos

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.