Understanding the Effects of Drishti Bheda, the Eye Movements in Indian Classical Dance, on Vision, Audition, and Cognition: A Cross-Sectional Study

Bharatanatyam is one of India's oldest classical Indian art forms, which integrates the practice of Drishti Bheda, i.e., synchronized controlled scanning eye movements with head, neck, and body movements used to amplify visual articulation and communication. These ocular workouts repeated over time suggest that eye training might boost up information from sight and hearing to cognitive capacities, as well as control and ability to regulate motor imagery, which relates to one's ability to see/feel movement without physical acting, to stimulate mental clarity, mindfulness, and boost emotions via plasticity of neural networks. Although Drishti Beda is artistically relevant to culture and the world of art, it lacks sufficient research to determine the impact on sensorial and cognitive skills. Knowledge of these effects can provide the scientific rationale to include traditional eye movement meditation exercises in preventive healthcare protocols for the brain and the senses and cognitive rehabilitation. This research assessed long-term Bharatanatyam training with Drishti Bheda on visual, auditory, and cognitive performance in healthy young individuals to understand if longer participation in the demanding nature of Bharatanatyam translates into improved sensory processing and overall cognition.

A cross-sectional comparative study was conducted in 60 healthy young females aged 18-22 years after obtaining Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) clearance. Of the two groups involved, the 30 Bharatanatyam dancers had a formal training period of more than 10 years in dance, whereas their age-matched non-dancing counterparts formed the control group. Demographic and anthropometric assessments were performed on all subjects; the visual aspect of health was studied using critical flicker fusion frequency (CFFF-Maven Labs Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India), while the auditory aspect of health was determined using pure tone audiometry (PTA) (RS I digital portable diagnostic audiometer, Sounds Good Hearing Care Scientific Company, Madurai, India); the mental health aspects of health were assessed using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), Movement Imagery Questionnaire-3 (MIQ-3), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). The groups were analyzed using independent-samples t tests.

This study found that Bharatanatyam performers exhibited significantly higher CFFF values (visual temporal resolution; p < 0.0001) and PTA thresholds (auditory sensitivity) in the right ear (p = 0.0053) and left ear (p = 0.0006) compared with the control group. Similarly, statistically significant improvements in cognitive measures were observed in dancers in mindfulness (p≈0.0004), perceived stress (p < 0.0001), emotion regulation (p = 0.0013), and movement imagery (p < 0.0001).

Long-term Bharatanatyam training, along with Drishti Bheda, was associated with improved visual, auditory, and cognitive abilities in young adult brains. It is likely that the multisensory-training aspect of the performance might involve a variety of neural modifications or plasticity across and within different sensory modalities, and different functional brain areas or systems, involved with attentional control, motor imagination, and emotion-processing abilities.