ORIGINAL PAPER Enhancing Brain Maturation Through a Mindfulness-Based Education in Elementary School Children: a Quantitative EEG Study Vorasith Siripornpanich 1 & Kwanrutai Sampoon 1 & Suthida Chaithirayanon 2 & Naiphinich Kotchabhakdi 1 & Nuanchan Chutabhakdikul 1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Mindfulness-based education (Mind-Edu) is increasingly being recognized as an effective educational approach to promote children’ s social and emotional competence. Although it has been implemented in several schools in Thailand for many years, studies examining its impact on the developing brain have been scarce. We hypothesized that the Mind-Edu might have some effects on resting state brain activities in school-aged students; therefore, we investigated long-term effects of Mind-Edu on the EEG power spectrum and compared with the control. Participants are 53 typically developing children (27 girls) studying in the 6th grade, mean aged 11.7 years, SD = 0.4. They were divided into the Mind-Edu group (N = 22) and the control group (N = 31). These two groups are different in school curriculums. One school uses the Mind-Edu curriculum for all levels of education, and another one uses the country’ s core curriculum. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded; eye-closed EEG segment was used for quantitative analysis and compared between groups. The results revealed that there was no significant difference between groups on the mean value of absolute beta, alpha, and delta powers over all electrode sites. However, the Mind-Edu group had a significant lower absolute theta power over the posterior brain regions and a significant smaller theta/beta ratio over the Cz electrode as compared to the control. Our results suggested that implementation of the Mind-Edu into the regular elementary school curriculum would be of benefit for enhancing maturation in brain areas involved with cognitive control and self-regula- tion, which might provide support for a smooth transition into the adolescence. Keywords Mindfulness-based education . Quantitative EEG . Absolute theta power . Theta-beta ratio . Late childhood Introduction Mindfulness is an awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally (Paulson et al. 2013). It refers to an ability to focus on present thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, in a cognitively non- elaborative and emotionally nonreactive way (Kabat-Zinn 2003). During the last two decades, there has been growing interest to implement the mindfulness base curriculum into the school settings. For examples, mindfulness training and prac- ticing can help reduce stress and enhance empathy in early childhood teachers (Crain et al. 2017; Miyahara et al. 2017). Other studies in elementary school children demonstrate the benefit of the mindfulness-based program on cognitive control and stress physiology, resulting in enhancing empathy and emotional control, decreasing symptoms of depression and aggression, being more prosocial and increasing in peer ac- ceptance (Parker et al. 2014; Schonert-Reichl et al. 2015). In Thailand, mindfulness-based education (Mind-Edu) is an al- ternative education that has been implemented into the kinder- gartens and elementary schools for more than two decades. The teaching strategies for the Mind-Edu is based on the ed- ucational principles such as experiential, interactive, partici- patory, student-centered, and relationship-centered as com- monly described in the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program (Santorelli 2014; Santorelli et al. 2017). In addition, teachers play roles in supporting the students to de- velop greater attentional, emotional, and behavioral self-reg- ulation, as well as positive qualities such as compassion, wisdom, and calmness. Moreover, students are intensively * Nuanchan Chutabhakdikul nuanchan.chu@mahidol.edu 1 Research Center for Neuroscience, Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand 2 Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot University, Nakhon Nayok 26120, Thailand Mindfulness https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0930-3