RE: Brain activity

[Guest guest]

how absolutely fascinating - many thanks

 

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Dr.Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani

Wednesday, November 10, 2004 4:06 AM

Brain activity

 

DHARAMSALA, INDIA, November 5, 2004: Although the Buddhists and scientists who met for five days last month in the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala, India, had different views on the matters of reincarnation and the relationship of mind to brain, they set them aside in the interest of a shared goal. They had come together to discuss one of the hottest topics in brain science: neuroplasticity. The term refers to the brain's recently discovered ability to change its structure and function, in particular by expanding or strengthening circuits that are used and by shrinking or weakening those that are rarely engaged. In its short history, the science of neuroplasticity has mostly documented brain changes that reflect physical experience and input from the outside world. Lately scientists have begun to wonder whether the brain can change in response to purely internal, mental signals. That's where ! the Buddhists come in. Their centuries-old tradition of meditation offers a real-life experiment in the power of thoughts to alter the physical matter of the brain.

In Dharamsala, the resulting brain scans compared brain activity in volunteers who were novice meditators to that of Buddhist monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation. The task was to practice "compassion" meditation, generating a feeling of loving kindness towards all beings. In a striking difference between novices and monks, the latter showed a dramatic increase in high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves during compassion meditation. Thought to be the signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung brain circuits, gamma waves underlie higher mental activity such as consciousness. The novice meditators "showed a slight increase in gamma activity, but most monks showed extremely large increases of a sort that has never been reported before in the euroscience literature," says neuroscientist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin, suggesting that ment! al training can bring the brain to a greater level of consciousness.

Using the brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists pinpointed regions that were active during compassion meditation. In almost every case, the enhanced activity was greater in the monks' brains than the novices'. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the seat of positive emotions such as happiness) swamped activity in the right prefrontal (site of negative emotions and anxiety), something never before seen from purely mental activity. A sprawling circuit that switches on at the sight of suffering also showed greater activity in the monks. So did regions responsible for planned movement, as if the monks' brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress, says this article. The study will be published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. -- _________Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.comhttp://www.mail.com/?sr=signup"Health and Happiness are your birthright, claim them through Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga" -Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

The complete report on the brain research was just published and is

available here: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0407401101v1.pdf.

 

Following is the abstract for the study:

 

Lutz, Antoine, Lawrence L. Greischar, Nancy B. Rawlings, Matthieu

Ricard, and Richard J. Davidson. Long-term meditators self-induce

high-amplitude

gamma synchrony during mental practice. Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences, 8 Nov 2004. Author email addresses: alutz

or rjdavids.

 

Abstract: Practitioners understand " meditation, " or mental training, to

be a process of familiarization with one's own mental life leading to

long-lasting changes in cognition and emotion. Little is known about

this process and its impact on the brain. Here we find that long-term

Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographic

high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during

meditation. These electroencephalogram patterns differ from those of

controls, in particular over lateral frontoparietal electrodes. In

addition, the ratio of gamma-band activity (25-42 Hz) to slow

oscillatory activity (4-13 Hz) is initially higher in the resting

baseline before meditation for the practitioners than the controls over

medial frontoparietal electrodes. This difference increases sharply

during meditation over most of the scalp electrodes and remains higher

than the initial baseline in the postmeditation baseline. These data

suggest that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms

and may induce short-term and long-term neural changes.

 

With kind regards,

Trisha

-

Trisha Lamb

Associate Director

International Association of Yoga Therapists,

a 501©(3) Nonprofit Public Benefit Organization

P.O. Box 2513

Prescott, AZ 86302, USA

Voice: 928-541-0004

Fax: 928-541-0182

Email: mail

URLs: www.iayt.org

[Guest guest]

Hello, Rishiculture group. I could not find the reported article using the URL provided below. However, after a search it was found to reside at:

 

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0407401101v1?maxtoshow= & HITS=10 & hits=10 & RESULTFORMAT= & fulltext=lutz%2C+antoine & searchid=1100187551313_4142 & stored_search= & FIRSTINDEX=0

 

Sincerely,

Roland Sweet

 

IAYT [mail]Wednesday, November 10, 2004 3:34 PM Subject: RE: Brain activityNamaste,The complete report on the brain research was just published and isavailable here: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0407401101v1.pdf.Following is the abstract for the study:Lutz, Antoine, Lawrence L. Greischar, Nancy B. Rawlings, MatthieuRicard, and Richard J. Davidson. Long-term meditators self-inducehigh-amplitudegamma synchrony during mental practice. Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences, 8 Nov 2004. Author email addresses: alutzor rjdavids. Abstract: Practitioners understand "meditation," or mental training, tobe a process of familiarization with one's own mental life leading tolong-lasting changes in cognition and emotion. Little is known aboutthis process and its impact on the brain. Here we find that long-termBuddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographichigh-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony duringmeditation. These electroencephalogram patterns differ from those ofcontrols, in particular over lateral frontoparietal electrodes. Inaddition, the ratio of gamma-band activity (25-42 Hz) to slowoscillatory activity (4-13 Hz) is initially higher in the restingbaseline before meditation for the practitioners than the controls overmedial frontoparietal electrodes. This difference increases sharplyduring meditation over most of the scalp electrodes and remains higherthan the initial baseline in the postmeditation baseline. These datasuggest that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanismsand may induce short-term and long-term neural changes.With kind regards,Trisha-Trisha LambAssociate DirectorInternational Association of Yoga Therapists, a 501©(3) Nonprofit Public Benefit OrganizationP.O. Box 2513Prescott, AZ 86302, USAVoice: 928-541-0004Fax: 928-541-0182Email: mailURLs: www.iayt.org"Health and Happiness are your birthright, claim them through Rishiculture Ashtanga Yoga" -Yogamaharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri