Brain Science Podcast Forum

Delany wrote:
Since there has been some discussion about meditation and the brain recently in a couple of threads (and since Ginger suggested it!), I'm starting a new topic for all of this.

Gene asked about research done by neurologists; actually, the medical specialty of neurology is not much involved in the research, so far as I have seen. The researchers who are doing the brain imagery, neuroscience stuff tend to be people whose doctoral training is in psychology, physiology, neuroscience, etc.

And, specifically with regard to EEG findings, the very quick summary I can give you is this: results are all over the place. That area of research is very immature, in part because of methodological problems yet to be worked out regarding very fundamental questions such as how "meditation" is to be defined and what practices constitute "meditation."

Also, I mentioned in an earlier post that there is an excellent new paper written about neuroscientific aspects of meditation; it is currently "in press." If anybody wants me to send it to them, you'll have to send me your email address... (Jeff?)...

I'll kick this topic off with some of the stuff I have previously written (here: http://mindexpressions.wordpress.com/meditation-research/) about recent research:

Here are some very brief summaries of a couple of the very exciting research findings from the 6th Annual Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Research Conference, just completed in April of 2008:

1. Cendri Hutcherson, B.S. (now at Stanford University): The Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation on Social Perception. Psychologists have long known that implicit judgments (these are instantaneous judgments, positive or negative, that take place in our brains outside of conscious awareness) can have a very large effect on our consciously experienced feelings about other people. In other words, sometimes we just don’t like someone we have just met, but we don’t know why; and, not knowing why, our minds tend to create explanations that may really have nothing to do with the actual person in front of us. Implicit judgments about persons of non-similar racial backgrounds are of this type. What Ms. Hutcherson and her colleagues were able to demonstrate, in a very rigorous and well-designed study, is that when people engage in only 7 minutes of compassion meditation (also called Metta, or Loving-Kindness Meditation), they display “increased positive mood, and [this practice] evoked feelings of positivity and social connection to novel individuals on both explicit and implicit levels.” [For more information about this type of meditation practice, see my previous post, here.]

2. Charles Raison, M.D. (now at Emory University): Effects of Compassion Meditation on Autonomic, Neuroendocrine and Inflammatory Pathway Reactivity to Psychosocial Stress. Dr. Raison points out that it is important to study the possible pathways along which meditation practice is helpful for stress-related emotional and medical conditions. He notes that “Obvious targets in this regard are pathways such as the autonomic nervous system, HPA axis, and innate immune inflammatory system that mediate mind-body interactions directly relevant to health.” In other words, stressful events and circumstances set off alarms within our nervous system, our endocrine system, and also in the form of an inflammatory response; all of these can (especially if they occur frequently, or for a long time) cause havoc in our bodies and minds, contributing to or causing serious disease processes. Dr. Raison is particularly interested in seeing whether meditation results in reduced reactivity within the inflammatory pathways that are activated when we encounter psychosocial stress. In other words, it is understood within medicine that our social interactions (work and marriage!) can cause a great deal of stress, and that this stress creates inflammatory responses that can make us sick (inflammatory responses are linked to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, and other diseases) In this study, participants were randomized either to training in loving-kindness meditation (Metta, or compassion meditation) or an active control group (a health discussion group). They were then subjected to an intense social stressor. Physiological measures were interleukin (IL)-6 and cortisol. Dr. Raison and his colleagues found that “meditation attenuated inflammatory reactivity to psychosocial stress [and this] may have significant health relevance.”

Summary: These two sets of studies are absolutely amazing. In both sets of studies, the intervention (or active ingredient) was Metta, or Loving-Kindness Meditation (see Sharon Salzberg and my earlier post on this type of meditation, here). And, in both, the practice of meditation apparently caused changes in the human mind and body that are of great importance. First, those who engaged in compassion meditation had a more positive outlook toward others, both consciously and unconsciously. Second, after engaging in compassion meditation, participants displayed lower inflammatory response to a psychosocial stressor, indicating that they are at lower risk for the many and various medical disorders related to stress.

Implications: Meditation practice apparently creates changes within us that we are totally unaware of, changes that can have a major impact on our emotions, our behavior, and our health. In other words, this meditation business is not just about relaxation, or generating good feelings within ourselves; this is much more about changing our deeply held attitudes about everything we encounter, and this, in turn, may reduce our body’s tendency to (essentially) self-destruct, in response to the stress and pain we encounter throughout our lives.