Tag: Brain

Meditation improves capacity for attention

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The longest and most complex study of meditation ever undertaken is beginning to publish its first results after more than two years spent analyzing the significant amount of data it gathered. This research, called the Shamata Project, began in 2007 at the University of California, Davis, and uses methods drawn from fields as diverse as molecular biology, neuroscience, and anthropology. It advertised for participants via word of mouth and advertisements in meditation-themed magazines. About 140 people applied to participate, of whom 60 were selected to take part in several experiments.

The first official findings released from the Project provide evidence to support the notion that the practice of meditation improves perception. An article published last month online in Psychological Science reports that those who participated in the study became better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention during a 30-minute test. This test, derived from those used to assess vigilance in radar operators,  involved the participants  watching a screen intently as lines flashed on it; most were of the same length, but every now and then a shorter one would appear, and the volunteer had to click the mouse in response when recognizing it. It was found that meditators were able to sustain their attention for longer periods without getting bored or distracted. Meditation seems to increase the capacity to be mindful, or pay attention, even to the small details happenig before us.

“Because this task is so boring and yet is also very neutral, it’s kind of a perfect index of meditation training,” says Katherine MacLean, the graduate student involved in the Project.  “People may think meditation is something that makes you feel good and going on a meditation retreat is like going on vacation, and you get to be at peace with yourself. That’s what people think until they try it. Then you realize how challenging it is to just sit and observe something without being distracted.”

Katherine MacLean, Clifford Saron, B. Alan Wallace et al. Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention. Psychological Science, (in press)

For more details check out the press release: http://news.ucdavis.edu/in_the_news/

Or the website : http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/

Meditation reduces the perception of pain.

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A recent study, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford,  has found that our physical experience of pain is influenced by the mood we are in at that moment. In other words,  our brain influences how we perceive and deal with the pain we are going through, as a low or anxious mood  disrupts a portion of our neurocircuitry related to regulating emotion, causing an enhanced perception of pain. The low mood may go as far as to drive the pain and make it feel worse. Mind and body are intimately linked when it comes to health and wellness.

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to affect the way we attend to what is happening in our lives at any moment,  and can impact upon mood in a positive manner. Therefore it is probably not surprising to read that a 2010 University of Manchester study, to be published in the Journal Pain,  noted that experienced meditators found pain  less unpleasant than did non-meditators. It seems that regular meditation can train the brain to anticipate pain less and reduce its emotional impact.

Dr Christopher Brown, who led the research,  stated “Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a way to treat chronic illness such as the pain caused by arthritis. Recently, a mental health charity called for meditation to be routinely available on the NHS (the National Health Service)  to treat depression, which occurs in up to 50% of people with chronic pain.”

The finding is a potential boon to the estimated 40% of people who are unable to adequately manage their chronic pain. Dr Brown suggests that the reason meditation works  is due to the fact that it is a training in remaining focused on the present moment and not anticipating future problems: “The results of the study confirm how we suspected meditation might affect the brain. Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events. This may be why meditation is effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which makes chronic pain considerably worse.”

You can read more on the University’s website: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=5801

Exercise combats low mood

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Mindfulness Stress Reduction encourages a mind-body approach to health. It is part of a growing field of integrative medical care that combines the best scientific medicine with evidence-based  therapies from complementary traditions. Recent research – which we have written about on this blog – has found that it has beneficial effects on stress as well  as changing the function and maybe even the structure of the brain,.

It would seem that physical exercise and aerobic workouts have a similar effect. Indeed, molecular scientists and neurologists have suggested that physical exercise may alter brain chemistry by working on the key neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine. In fact, exercise seems to work in much the same way that antidepressant drugs do. One researcher working in this area is Professor Philip Holmes at the University of Georgia, who has focused on the neurobiological effects of exercise. He has found that, over the course of several weeks, exercise affects certain genes that increase the brain’s level of galanin, a neurotransmitter that appears to tone down the body’s stress response by regulating another brain chemical, norepinephrine. His current work focuses on the link between stress and different addictions, and how exercise can reduce stress which leads to addictive behaviours: “Stress turns on norepinephrine,” says Holmes, “which turns on dopamine, which induces craving. Galanin decreases norepinephrine, so someone with high levels of galanin should experience reduced cravings.”

Researchers at Duke University support these findings. In a randomized controlled trial they found that depressed adults who participated in an aerobic-exercise plan improved as much as those treated with sertraline, the drug which,  marketed as Zoloft,  is one of the most prescribed anti-depressants.

You can find more on this subject in TIME Magazine: : http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1998021,00.html#ixzz0rgWOWgm0

Effect of Mindfulness on the Brain

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Richard Davidson, Ph.D, one of the world’s foremost brain scientists and named in TIME Magazine’s as one of the world’s top 100 most influential people, has done considerable research on the effect of mindfulness practices on the brain. As I mentioned in a previous post, he is now the Director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is researching how the brain can be trained and shaped to be more positive and resilient. In his work he has specialized in research on brain function related to emotion, both in normal individuals and those with, or at risk of, depression and anxiety.

In his research on brain function in anxiety he noted:  The functional M.R.I. images reveal that when people are emotionally distressed — anxious, angry, depressed — the most active sites in the brain are circuitry converging on the amygdala, part of the brain’s emotional centers, and the right prefrontal cortex, a brain region important for the hypervigilance typical of people under stress.

By contrast, when people are in positive moods — upbeat, enthusiastic and energized — those sites are quiet, with the heightened activity in the left prefrontal cortex.

By taking readings on hundreds of people, Davidson established a bell curve distribution, with most people in the middle, having a mix of good and bad moods. Those relatively few people who are farthest to the right are most likely to have a clinical depression or anxiety disorder over the course of their lives. For those lucky few farthest to the left, troubling moods are rare and recovery from them is rapid….

Davidson found  – in research on meditators versus non-meditators –  significant increases in left-sided anterior activation in the meditators compared with the non-meditators, the pattern previously associated with positive affect. He found that regular mindfulness practice over a period of just 8 weeks significantly increased immune system functioning and additionally increased left-brain activity (furthermore, increases in the left-brain functioning directly mediated the increases in immune system functioning).

The overall results from Davidson’s mindfulness research provides evidence for the use of meditative practices to reduce negative mood states – and furthermore shows that positive mood states are more likely to become a part of a person’s natural state if they meditate regularly.

Balance in Mind and Body

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The first three pillars of the MBSR Programme are  awareness of the body, awareness of emotions and awareness of thoughts. All of these need to work together in harmony for us to have a healthy and positive life.

The first pillar is awareness of the body,  both in the way stress manifests itself in the body and how a healthy lifestyle requires a healthy body. One way this is cultivated in the MBSR programme is through Mindful Yoga exercises.

The importance of physical fitness for the mind has been supported in a recent study by Laura Baker and her colleagues at the University of Washington, published in the Archives of Neurology. It found that older adults who engaged in regular exercise showed improved concentration and multi-tasking skills.  Another study, this time conducted by Charles Hillman PhD, published in  journal of the American College of Sports Medicine,  showed that a 30 minute aerobic workout significantly improved the accuracy of memory on administered tests. Finally, a recent Duke University study found that middle-aged participants who worked out for 30 minutes, three to four times a week, showed a 30% improvement in mental function after 4 months. As Dr Hillman states: “Data shows that getting regular exercise over time can increase both gray and white matter in the brain and make a huge difference in how well you process and track information, stay on task and allocate your mental resources”

Laura D. Baker, PhD, et al., Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Mild Cognitive Impairment : A Controlled Trial, Arch Neurol. 2010;67(1):71-79.

More effects of MBSR

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The MBSR Programme and Mindfulness practice seems to promote a “left-shift” in the brain. This means that there is increased activity in the left frontal activity of the brain after MBSR training. This change in function seems to reflect the development of an “approach state,” in which we move towards, rather than away from, a difficult external event or difficult internal thoughts and emotions. The development of this approach mentality, or an openenss to be aware of difficult emotions, seems to be related to emotional strength and resilience.

A second effect which is being noticed is an improvement in immune function. Not only is general resilience developed, but the body’s ability to fight infection is improved. I have already written about the studies which have seen this in HIV cases.

Thirdly, the MBSR Programme is related to participants expressing a greater internal sense of stability and clarity. This is certainly my experience in the Programees we have run here in Geneva. However, it has been studied in a pilot study at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center by Daniel Siegal. He found that adults and adolescents with attentional problems achieved more executive function improvements sustaining attention, diminishing distractibility) than are accomplished with justmedications for this condition. This research links in with the work done by Alan Wallace, Richie Davidson and Amiji Jha who have also found significant improvements in attentional regulation in those who have had mindfulness meditation training, such as enhanced focus.