Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation [In the Spotlight]
TL;DR: The changes in the brain that occur during different styles of meditation practice are examined to describe the brain changes that occur in response to experience.
Abstract: The term neuroplasticity is used to describe the brain changes that occur in response to experience. This article examines the changes in the brain that occur during different styles of meditation practice.
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Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai1, Vanderbilt University Medical Center2, Southern California University of Health Sciences3, University of California, Davis4, University of Massachusetts Medical School5, Harvard University6, Brown University7, New York University8, Stanford University9, Princeton University10, West Virginia University11, University of Michigan12
TL;DR: The difficulties of defining mindfulness are discussed, the proper scope of research into mindfulness practices is delineated, and crucial methodological issues for interpreting results from investigations of mindfulness are explained.
Abstract: During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and "key to building more resilient soldiers." Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism. Misinformation and poor methodology associated with past studies of mindfulness may lead public consumers to be harmed, misled, and disappointed. Addressing such concerns, the present article discusses the difficulties of defining mindfulness, delineates the proper scope of research into mindfulness practices, and explicates crucial methodological issues for interpreting results from investigations of mindfulness. For doing so, the authors draw on their diverse areas of expertise to review the present state of mindfulness research, comprehensively summarizing what we do and do not know, while providing a prescriptive agenda for contemplative science, with a particular focus on assessment, mindfulness training, possible adverse effects, and intersection with brain imaging. Our goals are to inform interested scientists, the news media, and the public, to minimize harm, curb poor research practices, and staunch the flow of misinformation about the benefits, costs, and future prospects of mindfulness meditation.
847 citations
Cites methods from "Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..."
...The investigation of mindfulness through such methods has also come to be known as contemplative neuroscience (e.g., Davidson & Lutz, 2008)....
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TL;DR: Evidence is presented that selective attention to positive information reflects emotion regulation and that regulating attention is a critical component of the emotion regulatory process, and that attentional regulation can be successfully trained through repeated practice.
Abstract: Empirical studies have frequently linked negative attentional biases with attentional dysfunction and negative moods; however, far less research has focused on how attentional deployment can be an adaptive strategy that regulates emotional experience. The authors argue that attention may be an invaluable tool for promoting emotion regulation. Accordingly, they present evidence that selective attention to positive information reflects emotion regulation and that regulating attention is a critical component of the emotion regulatory process. Furthermore, attentional regulation can be successfully trained through repeated practice. The authors ultimately propose a model of attention training methodologies integrating attention-dependent emotion regulation strategies with attention networks. Although additional interdisciplinary research is needed to bolster these nascent findings, meditative practices appear to be among the most effective training methodologies in enhancing emotional well-being. Further exploration of the positive and therapeutic qualities of attention warrants the empirical attention of social and personality psychologists.
306 citations
Cites background from "Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..."
...…of effort to acquire, it is likely that with repeated practice these attentional processes can become more automated over time, requiring substantially less effort to execute (R. J. Davidson & Lutz, 2008; Lutz, Brefczynski-Lewis, et al., 2008; Lutz, Slager et al., 2008; Wegner & Bargh, 1998)....
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TL;DR: This paper presents a meta-modelling framework for nanoarchitectonics that automates the very labor-intensive and therefore time-heavy and therefore expensive and expensive process of designing materials for nanomaterials engineering.
Abstract: [*] Dr. T. Hasegawa, Dr. T. Ohno, Dr. K. Terabe, Dr. T. Tsuruoka, Dr. T. Nakayama, Prof. M. Aono WPI Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, 305-0044 (Japan) E-mail: hasegawa.tsuyoshi@nims.go.jp Prof. J. K. Gimzewski Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of California, Los Angeles 607 Charles E. Young Drive East Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569 (USA)
287 citations
TL;DR: Investigating whether MM affects self-referential processing, associated with default mode network (DMN), either as short (state) - or long-term (trait) effects found state increases in posterior gamma power, suggesting increased attention and sensory awareness.
215 citations
Cites background from "Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..."
...Meditation was shown to induce neuroplasticity in brain function (Davidson and Lutz, 2008) as well as structure (Hölzel et al., 2011)....
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TL;DR: Findings suggest that mindfulness skills are important in adaptive emotion regulation when coping with stress, given that emotional reactivity to stress is an important psychopathological process underlying the chronic and recurrent nature of depression.
213 citations
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TL;DR: It is found that long-term Buddhist practitioners self-induce sustained electroencephalographic high-amplitude gamma-band oscillations and phase-synchrony during meditation, suggesting that mental training involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long- term neural changes.
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 shortterm and long-term neural changes. electroencephalogram synchrony gamma activity meditation
1,086 citations
"Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..." refers background in this paper
...An example of high-amplitude gamma activity during a form of OM meditation, nonreferential compassion meditation, in long-term Buddhist practitioners [6] is shown in Figure 1(D) and (E)....
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...correlated with the length of the long-term practitioners' meditation training through life (adapted from [6])....
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...Previous studies [6] of high-amplitude pattern of gamma synchrony in expert meditators during an emotional version of OM meditation support the idea that the state of OM may be best understood in terms of a succession of dynamic global states....
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TL;DR: In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, it was found that activation in a network of brain regions typically involved in sustained attention showed an inverted u-shaped curve in which expert meditators (EMs) with an average of 19,000 h of practice had more activation than novices, but EMs with anAverage of 44,000H had less activation.
Abstract: Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with specific types of mental processes. One of the most basic forms of meditation is concentration meditation, in which sustained attention is focused on an object such as a small visual stimulus or the breath. In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, we found that activation in a network of brain regions typically involved in sustained attention showed an inverted u-shaped curve in which expert meditators (EMs) with an average of 19,000 h of practice had more activation than novices, but EMs with an average of 44,000 h had less activation. In response to distracter sounds used to probe the meditation, EMs vs. novices had less brain activation in regions related to discursive thoughts and emotions and more activation in regions related to response inhibition and attention. Correlation with hours of practice suggests possible plasticity in these mechanisms.
862 citations
"Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..." refers background in this paper
...A recent study [4] used fMRI to interrogate the neural correlates of FA meditation in experts and novices....
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TL;DR: This study shows that meditation, or mental training, affects the distribution of limited brain resources, and supports the idea that plasticity in brain and mental function exists throughout life and illustrates the usefulness of systematic mental training in the study of the human mind.
Abstract: The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the so-called “attentional-blink” deficit: When two targets (T1 and T2) embedded in a rapid stream of events are presented in close temporal proximity, the second target is often not seen. This deficit is believed to result from competition between the two targets for limited attentional resources. Here we show, using performance in an attentional-blink task and scalp-recorded brain potentials, that meditation, or mental training, affects the distribution of limited brain resources. Three months of intensive mental training resulted in a smaller attentional blink and reduced brain-resource allocation to the first target, as reflected by a smaller T1-elicited P3b, a brain-potential index of resource allocation. Furthermore, those individuals that showed the largest decrease in brain-resource allocation to T1 generally showed the greatest reduction in attentional-blink size. These observations provide novel support for the view that the ability to accurately identify T2 depends upon the efficient deployment of resources to T1. The results also demonstrate that mental training can result in increased control over the distribution of limited brain resources. Our study supports the idea that plasticity in brain and mental function exists throughout life and illustrates the usefulness of systematic mental training in the study of the human mind.
696 citations
"Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..." refers background in this paper
...The study in [5] found that three months of intensive training in Vipassana meditation (a common style of OM meditation) reduced brain-resource allocation to the first target, as reflected in a smaller T1-elicited P3b, a brain-potential index of resource allocation....
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...Another study [5] recently examined the idea that OM meditation decreases elaborative stimulus processing in a longitudinal study using scalp-recorded brain potentials and performance in an attentional blink task....
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01 May 2007
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the initial findings of neuroscientific research on meditation; in doing so, the authors also suggest potential avenues of further inquiry and discuss the difficulties encountered when working with such theories.
Abstract: The overall goal of this chapter is to explore the initial findings of neuroscientific research on meditation; in doing so, the chapter also suggests potential avenues of further inquiry. It has three sections that, although integral to the chapter as a whole, may also be read independently. The first section, “Defining Meditation,” notes the need for a more precise understanding of meditation as a scientific explanandum. Arguing for the importance of distinguishing the particularities of various traditions, the section presents the theory of meditation from the paradigmatic perspective of Buddhism, and it discusses the difficulties encountered when working with such theories. The section includes an overview of three practices that have been the subject of research, and it ends with a strategy for developing a questionnaire to define more precisely a practice under examination. The second section, “The Intersection of Neuroscience and Meditation,” explores some scientific motivations for the neuroscientific examination of meditation in terms of its potential impact
320 citations
TL;DR: This paper brings together the updated empirical findings related to the role of attention and the maturation of brain frontal areas in self-regulation and focuses on the attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
183 citations
"Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and..." refers methods in this paper
...When the framework of neuroplasticity is applied to meditation, we suggest that the mental training of meditation is fundamentally no different than other forms of skill acquisition that can induce plastic changes in the brain [1, 2]....
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