Meditation Experience Shapes Posterior Alpha Dynamics Across Sudarshan Kriya Yoga Stages

<p>Respiration is increasingly recognized as a modulator of large-scale neural activity, yet how structured breathing practices influence cortical oscillations - and whether these effects vary with experience - remains incompletely understood. Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY), a sequential breath-based practice, provides a stage-defined framework for examining how oscillatory activity evolves across structured breathing phases.Using a secondary analysis of a publicly available EEG dataset, we investigated stage-resolved changes in oscillatory power during SKY, with a focus on posterior alpha activity. Analyses were restricted to the intervention group and applied a standardized preprocessing and spectral analysis pipeline.Posterior alpha power showed a robust, monotonic decrease across SKY stages, indicating progressive modulation of posterior cortical activity throughout the breathing sequence. Although meditation experience was not associated with overall alpha levels, it significantly moderated stage-related dynamics, with more experienced practitioners showing steeper reductions in posterior alpha across stages.These findings suggest that posterior alpha activity varies systematically across the structured phases of SKY and that meditation experience shapes the trajectory of these state-dependent neural changes. More broadly, the results highlight the value of stage-resolved approaches for characterizing how oscillatory dynamics unfold during breath-based contemplative practices.</p>