AU study to ‘measure’ whether yoga, meditation impact Covid-19 recovery

Joint team of experts of various specialisations begin research as part of Centre-funded project

PRAYAGRAJ: A scientific study using modern technology has begun at the Allahabad University (AU) to determine the impact, if any, of yoga and meditation in helping people beat the Coronavirus disease. Claims from various quarters had made assertions that these ancient Indian techniques help Covid-19infected patients recover faster, while keeping a positive outlook during treatment.

A joint team of experts from various fields including psychology, cognition and technology have begun work on this union ministry of science and technology-funded project, AU officials said. “Though it is being widely accepted that select yoga techniques and meditation is helpful for Covid-19 patients, our is aim to scientifically determine what and how much impact do they really have on boosting immunity and mental health of the patients,” said Ashish Khare, the coordinator of the study and an associate professor at AU’s department of Electronics and Communication, who specialises in the field of medical imaging, human action recognition and behavioural understanding.

Other key members of the team include Neena Kohli of AU’s psychology department and Bhoomika Kar of AU Centre of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (CBCS) as co-coordinators of the project. The study comes at a time when Covid-19 patients as well as those who have recovered from the disease are being widely asked to practise certain yoga techniques and meditation on social media platforms.

“We have received a grant of Rs 8.98 lakh from the union ministry of science and technology for this study. The study will be done in two phases. Under it we will first study those Covid-19 infected people who practised yoga and meditation while infected and ascertain the impact of these techniques on their recovery from infection, immunity system and mental health. We will also study those individuals who did not practise these techniques after getting infected by the virus,” Khare added. For this, the scientists plan to use a functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) machine available at AU’s CBCS. The fMRI measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region also increases.

“We began work on the project in March this year and a set of experiments have been designed which we will undertake using the fMRI machine. The data collected as part of the year-long study and our findings will be sent to the central government too,” he said.