Full Version: Meditate on this
QUOTE (Adrija @ Nov 15 2005, 11:44 AM)
What happens when the brain starts getting bigger than the skull? Is it like a potted plant, where the roots start coming out of that small drainage hole on the bottom of the pot when the pot becomes too small for the growing plant? Should we be expecting meditators to start having brain matter coming out of their ears? One way to fight this pressing phenomena would be to read further down on the web site, where it says chronic pain makes the brain smaller, so I would imagine that a bursting out brain may cause a lot of pain and hence get smaller. This could of course explain why I have been living in the Infirmary for so long now!!!
QUOTE (Adrija @ Nov 15 2005, 09:44 AM)
Interestingly enough this story made it to CNN. Saw it this morning. Tibetan monks were in the background. Was rather silly when commentators tried to imitate OM sounds.
A friend of mine, Maco Stewart, wrote to the people behind the study. He gave me permission to post the below here. He found the answers insufficient and the study inconclusive.
QUOTE
Here were my questions and their (insufficient) responses.
-----
Dear Maco,
> Three questions: were these changes seen over time, or are they
> simply differences in this group vs a "normal" control group?
> the latter, i.e., a cross-sectional design (a single time-point),
> comparing people with experience to a control group
>
> If the latter, how have you controlled the issue of whether it's a
> case of persons with such structures being attracted to meditation
> instead of it being meditation that actually brings about the
> changes?
great question! there are practical tradeoffs. looking at changes is
more informative, but it would take 10 years to do the study training
people to the level of experience that we had. and of course we would
not want to invest such time without having done a cross-sectional
study first. so we did the cross-sectional one.
however, we did an analysis that goes a long way to arguing against
this as a trivial interpretation. specifically, within the group of
meditators alone, greater meditation experience (as indexed by the
magnitude of the change in breathing rate as they were doing
meditation) was predictive of (= correlated with) changes in cortical
thickness. this suggests that it is really experience with meditation
(expertise if you like), and not simply a function of differences in
who was attracted to try meditation.
[note from Maco: this, of course, does not address the question:
"greater meditation experience" defined as a greater decrease in
breathing rate could certainly be the result of a preexisting
underlying cortical difference rather than the cause of such a
difference.]
> Also, if actual changes have been noted, over what timeframe have
> the changes occurred?
we did not look at change over time--some of my co-authors will be
doing so, or are already doing so.
> Thanks very much-
thanks for your interest. best regards,
--Jeremy
/*----------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy R. Gray, PhD
------------------------------------------------------------*/
--This was the article:
Meditation associated with increased grey matter in the brain
New Haven, Conn.-Meditation is known to alter resting brain
patterns, suggesting long lasting brain changes, but a new study by
researchers from Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows meditation also is
associated with increased cortical thickness.
The structural changes were found in areas of the brain that are
important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing, the
researchers report in the November issue of NeuroReport.
Although the study included only 20 participants, all with
extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation, the results are
significant, said Jeremy Gray, assistant professor of psychology at
Yale and co-author of the study led by Sara Lazar, assistant in
psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that me! ditation
practice can change anyone's grey matter," Gray said. "The study
participants were people with jobs and families. They just
meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a
monk."
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that regular practice of
meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of
cortical regions related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal
perception, such as heart rate or breathing. The researchers also
found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related
thinning of the frontal cortex.
"Most of the regions identified in this study were found in the
right hemisphere," the researchers said. "The right hemisphere is
essential for sustaining attention, which is a central practice of
Insight meditation."
They said other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar
impact on cortical structure, although each tradition would be
expected to have a slightly different pattern of cortical
thickening ba! sed on the specific mental exercises involved.
###
C o-authors include Catherine Kerr, Rachel Wasserman Jeffery Dusek,
Herbert Benson and Metta McGarvey, Harvard; Douglas Greve, Brian
Quinn, Bruce Fischl, Michael Treadway and Scott Rauch,
Massachusetts General Hospital, and Christopher Moore,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NeuroReport 16: 1893-1897 (November 28, 2005)
-----
Dear Maco,
> Three questions: were these changes seen over time, or are they
> simply differences in this group vs a "normal" control group?
> the latter, i.e., a cross-sectional design (a single time-point),
> comparing people with experience to a control group
>
> If the latter, how have you controlled the issue of whether it's a
> case of persons with such structures being attracted to meditation
> instead of it being meditation that actually brings about the
> changes?
great question! there are practical tradeoffs. looking at changes is
more informative, but it would take 10 years to do the study training
people to the level of experience that we had. and of course we would
not want to invest such time without having done a cross-sectional
study first. so we did the cross-sectional one.
however, we did an analysis that goes a long way to arguing against
this as a trivial interpretation. specifically, within the group of
meditators alone, greater meditation experience (as indexed by the
magnitude of the change in breathing rate as they were doing
meditation) was predictive of (= correlated with) changes in cortical
thickness. this suggests that it is really experience with meditation
(expertise if you like), and not simply a function of differences in
who was attracted to try meditation.
[note from Maco: this, of course, does not address the question:
"greater meditation experience" defined as a greater decrease in
breathing rate could certainly be the result of a preexisting
underlying cortical difference rather than the cause of such a
difference.]
> Also, if actual changes have been noted, over what timeframe have
> the changes occurred?
we did not look at change over time--some of my co-authors will be
doing so, or are already doing so.
> Thanks very much-
thanks for your interest. best regards,
--Jeremy
/*----------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy R. Gray, PhD
------------------------------------------------------------*/
--This was the article:
Meditation associated with increased grey matter in the brain
New Haven, Conn.-Meditation is known to alter resting brain
patterns, suggesting long lasting brain changes, but a new study by
researchers from Yale, Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows meditation also is
associated with increased cortical thickness.
The structural changes were found in areas of the brain that are
important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing, the
researchers report in the November issue of NeuroReport.
Although the study included only 20 participants, all with
extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation, the results are
significant, said Jeremy Gray, assistant professor of psychology at
Yale and co-author of the study led by Sara Lazar, assistant in
psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that me! ditation
practice can change anyone's grey matter," Gray said. "The study
participants were people with jobs and families. They just
meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a
monk."
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that regular practice of
meditation is associated with increased thickness in a subset of
cortical regions related to sensory, auditory, visual and internal
perception, such as heart rate or breathing. The researchers also
found that regular meditation practice may slow age-related
thinning of the frontal cortex.
"Most of the regions identified in this study were found in the
right hemisphere," the researchers said. "The right hemisphere is
essential for sustaining attention, which is a central practice of
Insight meditation."
They said other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar
impact on cortical structure, although each tradition would be
expected to have a slightly different pattern of cortical
thickening ba! sed on the specific mental exercises involved.
###
C o-authors include Catherine Kerr, Rachel Wasserman Jeffery Dusek,
Herbert Benson and Metta McGarvey, Harvard; Douglas Greve, Brian
Quinn, Bruce Fischl, Michael Treadway and Scott Rauch,
Massachusetts General Hospital, and Christopher Moore,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NeuroReport 16: 1893-1897 (November 28, 2005)
There is a lot of stuff that talks about these things there is a book written by a neuroscientist called Zen and the Brain, the entire book devoted to the link between Zazen and the brain. The editor of the Encyclopedia of Neuroscience has good things to say about it and it won the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize. It seems useful in terms of what happens physiologically to the brain when in Zen meditation for those who are interested in this topic. It did take him ten years to write just one of the chapters. I did not like the kind of phrases he uses when describing samadhi experiences this dampened my interest in getting the book.
Here is a review from the MIT press:
.
Here is a review from the MIT press:
.
The chapter where he talks about "the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment" sounds pretty interesting though.
QUOTE
> Three questions: were these changes seen over time, or are they
> simply differences in this group vs a "normal" control group?
> the latter, i.e., a cross-sectional design (a single time-point),
> comparing people with experience to a control group
> simply differences in this group vs a "normal" control group?
> the latter, i.e., a cross-sectional design (a single time-point),
> comparing people with experience to a control group
Accha! Interesting, Oneiros. This certainly limits the conclusions one can legitimately draw from this study.
real funny and very German
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