Meditation can induce long-lasting changes in brain function, scientist says.
 

A very intersting article in my local paper this weekend.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/M...513/story.html

Sounds like what I need...I'm not very good at meditating but after reading this article I feel more inspired to give it a try again.


Wishing you all well.

MsL

Hi MsL,
Thank you so much for the interesting article on meditation. I know from experience meditation, positive thoughts help us physically, emotionally and mentally. Being around a negative person is very difficult, especially if they are a close family member.
And with RSD and chronic pain, it takes effort to stay in a positive frame of mind, but it IS possible. Happiness is an inside job! I was in therapy for a couple years plus in the 80's when my parents died. It helped me so much-to this day. I've had RSD 14 years and I work every day on my mind set, meditation, prayer, and positive thought process.
I grew up in Oregon about 50 miles inland from Florence. Loved going to the coast camping. So beautiful. Thank you again for the info, your friend, loretta soft hugs:grouphug:

Thanks for the article
 

MsL and Loretta,
Hi Ladies! Hope you are both well today.
I have been meditating for years. Back in the day I went transdental meditation classes. I also taught meditation to the youth at The Church of Religious Science.Then meditation was also part of the Nisreen so sho buddhistism that I practiced....years ago. I meditate each day, before I get out of bed and before I sleep at night.
The easiest way I have found it to just close your eyes and get in a comfortable position. Look at your "third eye", which is between your eyes and just slightly up. Then concetrate on your breathing. Pay attention to the inhale and exhale. At first make deep breathes so you can hear the inhale and exhale. If the internal dialogue comes, and it will, just refocus on the breathing. You will get better with practice.
If you have difficulties unwinding before you meditate, go through the tensing of each part of your body and relaxing. Starting with your toes moving upwards. When you get to your heart area or chest area take a minute to be grateful for things or people in your life and move on up your body. This should set the mood for a relaxing meditative period.
Also, as I meditate I begin with a simple mantra, " Be Still and Know". At other times I say the words "love, peace, joy, perfect health, ...what ever my need or desire maybe and then focus my attention on each inhale and exhale (sometimes making the breathes loud enough so I won't be distracted).
Remember the internal dialogue will come, don't resist, just let it pass through and refocus on the breathing.
Peaceful Meditating....Hugs Di
PS Also have a nice quiet place for your meditations.

Dear Msday -

My compliments. Another reason to love what is at least for now your wonderful city. Where it's my understanding that Richard Davidson carries the biggest stick in the world of Buddhist selfless neuroscience, I was somewhat disappointed by his prediction of 2050 as the year by which "brain exercise" would be taken as seriously as exercising the body: the somatic self, if you'll have it. He should know far better than me, but it's my strong sense/hope that the time of which he speaks will arrive much earlier.

That said, your post has inspired me to pull out the heavy artillery. To begin, please check out the following page from ScienceDaily.com:

Compassion Meditation Changes The Brain

ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2008) — Can we train ourselves to be compassionate? A new study suggests the answer is yes. Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This study was the first to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to indicate that positive emotions such as loving-kindness and compassion can be learned in the same way as playing a musical instrument or being proficient in a sport. The scans revealed that brain circuits used to detect emotions and feelings were dramatically changed in subjects who had extensive experience practicing compassion meditation.

The research suggests that individuals -- from children who may engage in bullying to people prone to recurring depression -- and society in general could benefit from such meditative practices, says study director Richard Davidson, professor of psychiatry and psychology at UW-Madison and an expert on imaging the effects of meditation. Davidson and UW-Madison associate scientist Antoine Lutz were co-principal investigators on the project.

The study was part of the researchers' ongoing investigations with a group of Tibetan monks and lay practitioners who have practiced meditation for a minimum of 10,000 hours. In this case, Lutz and Davidson worked with 16 monks who have cultivated compassion meditation practices. Sixteen age-matched controls with no previous training were taught the fundamentals of compassion meditation two weeks before the brain scanning took place. . . .

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0326204236.htm

The complete story is a must-read, and the webpage is pretty amazing in its own right for all of the links, etc. The underlying article, "Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise," Antoine Lutz, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, Tom Johnstone, Richard J. Davidson, PLoS ONE, 2008; 3 (3): e1897 can be opened in full text at http://www.plosone.org/article/fetch...esentation=PDF

A few months ago a friend sent me an article out of the Harvard Medical School, "Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness," Lazar SW et al, Neuroreport. 2005 Nov 28 Vol. 16 No. 17 pp. 1893-7 free full text at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...2&blobtype=pdf

The article is remarkable for, among other things, showing that dedicated practitioners - meditating at least 45 minutes a day and at least 5 days a week for ten years - showed a thickening of the cortical cells in the anterior insula (AI) (one of the primary signal receptors in the cortex from the thalamus, largely responsible from emotional regulation), where a comparable study done last year - at Vania Apkarian’s wonderful “Pain and Pleasure Lab” at Northwestern http://www.apkarianlab.northwestern.edu/ - of chronic CRPS patients showed, among other things, an atrophy of cortical cells in the AI. "The Brain in Chronic CRPS Pain: Abnormal Gray-White Matter Interactions in Emotional and Autonomic Regions," Geha PY, Baliki MN, Harden RN, Bauer WR, Parrish TB, Apkarian AV, Neuron 2008;60:570-581 full text at http://www.rsds.org/2/library/articl...aliki_etal.pdf

Now here’s where things get tricky. After four or five years of dropping into states of deep concentration on Shinzen’s retreats, I lost the ability to do so, around the time I had no other choice but to switch to Baclofen to control my spasms, having gone through everything else. Now, I don’t know that it’s causally related, but I have to tell you that sitting 10 hours a day for 12 days with nothing but monkey mind provides a wonderful opportunity to explore frustration: sometimes to the point that it alone may lead to moments of stream entering, but not often. So with this in mind I asked a friend of mine whose pretty deeply into this research whether time spent in meditation could have a beneficial effect on the AI, independent of one’s level of concentration. To which he replied that while this science was still in “its infancy” it was his sense that the level of concentration was probably an important factor.

Enter another article out of Professor Davidson’s group, “ Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners, Brefczynski-Lewis JA . . . Davidson R, J - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2007 Jul 3 V. 104 No. 27 pp. 11483-8 full text at http://www.pnas.org/content/104/27/11483.full.pdf It’s something I highly recommend. And although finding hours of prior practice as the key variable, didn’t answer my precise question, if have to acknowledge that sitting year after year with monkey mind would be a remarkable achievement. That said, there are implications in the study that meditation may improve the focus of people with ADHD – which itself is quantifiable under fMRI – which I suppose was the case with me, until it didn’t. But having been recently diagnosed with “Chronic Small Vessel Ischemic White Matter Disease” - the term alone rings all sorts of RSD bells even the though the disease is understood to be atheroscleratic in origin* – I have to assume that’s playing a role here, where loss of executive functioning is the chief hallmark of the critter. Then there was a TIA 10 days ago that put me in the hospital on a 24 hour stroke watch . . . . But I digress, the “Practical Implications” paragraph at the end of the “Neural Correlates of Attention Expertise. . .” study is remarkable in and of itself:

Practical Implications. Regions in this study showing differences between groups and correlations with hours of practice overlapped with regions showing abnormal structural and functional variation in persons with attention deficit disorders. For example, compared with normal controls, individuals with attention deficit disorders have shown activation differences in the sustained attention network, regions involved in response inhibition, and reduction in size of prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. In addition, it is plausible from our results that meditation may strengthen the ability to inhibit cognitive and emotional mental processes such as rumination that can lead to or exacerbate stress, anxiety, or depression. Thus, our data encourage the examination of meditation as a potential form of attentional training in both disordered and normal populations and may provide an answer to William James’s question posed >100 years ago when he asked how we might educate attention because such education would be ‘‘the education par excellence’’ (original italics). [Footnote references omitted.]

Time doesn’t permit me to go into all of the freely accessible article articles that I found, but here are the rest:

Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation - Antoine Lutz - Heleen A. Slagter - John D. Dunne and Richard J. Davidson - Trends Cogn. Sci. - 2008 April Vol. 12 No. 4 pp 163–169 full text at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...6&blobtype=pdf

Abstract
This article explores initial findings and the implications of neuroscientific research on meditation. Meditation is conceptualized here as a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory training regimes developed for various ends, including the cultivation of well-being and emotional balance. The review focuses on the mental processes and the underlying neural circuitry that are critically involved in two styles of meditation. One style, Focused Attention (FA) meditation, entails the voluntary focusing of attention on a chosen object. The other style, Open Monitoring (OM)meditation, involves non-reactive monitoring of the content of experience from moment to moment. We discuss the potential regulatory functions of these practices on attention and emotion processes and their putative long-term impact on the brain and behavior.

Attending to the present - mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference - Norman A. S. Farb et al - Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience -2007 Vol. 2 No. 4 pp. 313-322 full text at http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/2/4/313.pdf

Abstract
It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness,we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits (’narrative’ focus, NF) or momentary experience (’experiential’ focus, EF) in both novice participants and those having attended an 8 week course in mindfulness meditation, a program that trains individuals to develop focused attention on the present. In novices, EF yielded focal reductions in self-referential cortical midline regions (medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC) associated with NF. In trained participants, EF resulted in more marked and pervasive reductions in the mPFC, and increased engagement of a right lateralised network, comprising the lateral PFC and viscerosomatic areas such as the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and inferior parietal lobule. Functional connectivity analyses further demonstrated a strong coupling between the right insula and the mPFC in novices that was uncoupled in the mindfulness group. These results suggest a fundamental neural dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness that are habitually integrated but can be dissociated through attentional training: the self across time and in the present moment.

Theta phase synchrony and conscious target perception - impact of intensive mental training - Slagter HA . . . Davidson RJ. J Cogn. Neurosci. 2009 Aug V. 21 No. 8 pp. 1536-49 full text at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...2&blobtype=pdf

Abstract
The information processing capacity of the human mind is limited, as is evidenced by the attentional blink—a deficit in identifying the second of two targets (T1 and T2) presented in close succession.This deficit is thought to result from an overinvestment of limited resources in T1 processing. We previously reported that intensive mental training in a style of meditation aimed at reducing elaborate object processing, reduced brain resource allocation to T1, and improved T2 accuracy [Slagter, H.A., Lutz, A., Greisschar, L. L., Frances, A. D., Nieuwenhuis, S., Davis, J., et al. Mental training affects distribution of limited brain resources. PloS Biology, 5, e138, 2007]. Here we report EEG spectral analyses to examine the possibility that this reduction in elaborate T1 processing rendered the system more available to process new target information, as indexed by T2-locked phase variability. Intensive mental training was associated with decreased cross-trial variability in the phase of oscillatory theta activity after successfully detected T2s, in particular, for those individuals who showed the greatest reduction in brain resource allocation to T1. These data implicate theta phase locking in conscious target perception, and suggest that after mental training the cognitive system is more rapidly available to process new target information. Mental training was not associated with changes in the amplitude of T2-induced responses or oscillatory activity before task onset. In combination, these findings illustrate the usefulness of systematic mental training in the study of the human mind by revealing the neural mechanisms that enable the brain to successfully represent target information.

Neuroimaging of meditation's effect on brain reactivity to pain - Orme-Johnson DW et al - Neuroreport 2006 Aug 21 Vol. 17 No. 12 pp. 1359-63 full text at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...5&blobtype=pdf

Abstract
Some meditation techniques reduce pain, but there have been no studies on how meditation affects the brain’s response to pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the response to thermally induced pain applied outside the meditation period found that long-term practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique showed 40–50% fewer voxels responding to pain in the thalamus and total brain than in healthy matched controls interested in learning the technique. After the controls learned the technique and practiced it for 5 months, their response decreased by 40–50% in the thalamus, prefrontal cortex, total brain, and marginally in the anterior cingulate cortex. The results suggest that the Transcendental Meditation technique longitudinally reduces the affective/motivational dimension of the brain’s response to pain.

Investigation of mindfulness meditation practitioners with voxel-based morphometry - Hölzel BK et al - Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2008 vol. 3 No. 1 pp. 55-61 full text at http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/3/1/55.pdf

Abstract
Mindfulness meditators practice the non-judgmental observation of the ongoing stream of internal experiences as they arise. Using voxel-based morphometry, this study investigated MRI brain images of 20 mindfulness (Vipassana) meditators (mean practice 8.6 years; 2 h daily) and compared the regional gray matter concentration to that of non-meditators matched for sex, age, education and handedness. Meditators were predicted to show greater gray matter concentration in regions that are typically activated during meditation. Results confirmed greater gray matter concentration for meditators in the right anterior insula, which is involved in interoceptive awareness. This group difference presumably reflects the training of bodily awareness during mindfulness meditation. Furthermore, meditators had greater gray matter concentration in the left inferior temporal gyrus and right hippocampus. Both regions have previously been found to be involved in meditation. The mean value of gray matter concentration in the left inferior temporal gyrus was predictable by the amount of meditation training, corroborating the assumption of a causal impact of meditation training on gray matter concentration in this region. Results suggest that meditation practice is associated with structural differences in regions that are typically activated during meditation and in regions that are relevant for the task of meditation.

That’s what I’ve got. My thanks to those who had the patience to stay with me.

Mike

*Turns out that there may be, in a very slim minority of cases, the chance of a "nonatheroscleratic vasculopathy," which could explain why my internist told me this afternoon that he's seen a marked decline in the speed of my expressive functions over the last five years, even though following the diagnosis of a coronary occlusion and issuance of a "drug elluding stent" in 2005, I've been on a steady diet of low dose statins, aspirin and Plavix: the precise therapies of choice for atheroscleratic neuro-ischemias (closing of blood vessels). As in, if they're not filling with fat, maybe they're being constricted after all. To be continued.

OMG!
Michael just dropped another f Bomb of knowledge!

My Brain is gonna explode! (How do people get so smart?)...

Ok, gonna go dry off the sweat now....


pete

Dear Mike,

This is such a great wealth of information you have shared with us all. Thank you very much! I know I will certainly be returning to your to your posting many times as I go through this journey into meditation. After having Shinzen Young's "Break Through Pain" CD sitting on my bed side table for the past couple of years I've decided it's time to dust it off and just do it.

Your comments about the your current state of health have me quite concerned. How are you feeling now after this? Are the doctors able to give you any indication what is wrong? I really do hope that you are able to get to the bottom of this. Please take good care of yourself.


Dear Diana,

Thank you very much for the sharing your wonderful tips. I think it will help me to relax further into the process. I tend to worry too much that I'm not doing things right, let my mind wander and before you know it I'm back up and moving around again. I wish I could just be still in the moment but it really is hard for me. I just need to focus on the breath as you said and that will draw me back and put me on the right channel.

The Dalai Lama has been here for the past few days participating in a Peace summit. He was also the guest editor for the weekend paper. I could not attend any of the talks or events but I have been moved and inspired from afar just reading about it . Today he spoke to a crowd of 16,000 youths all gathered to celebrate "We Day" What a great idea!

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertai...779/story.html

Welcome to the "We" generation :grouphug:

MsL

Msday -

No worries, it's really something that's quite capitivating, as you can't imagine how much time I've logged on PubMed over the last month.

But the good news is this: we know what it's not. And that is small vessel ischemic white matter disease that is atheroscleratic in origin. The "TIA" standing alone could be many things, including a "Panic Attack": a defined term having nothing to do with perceived anxiety and everything to do with the release of stuff from the subconcious. Which in fact once happened to me on a beautific early January day ("Rose Bowl Weather") in 2007, on retreat in Santa Barbara, only it felt like a heart attack, and I wondered in retrospect whether I had received a visit from the legendary "Armies of Mara."

Until I saw the neurologist on Tuesday and we kicked this around, I had been bummed that this had popped up between late January, 2007, when a couple of weeks after the retreat I keeled over one morning (again) out if the blue and a brain MRI (w/ and w/o constrast) showed only a single very small area of focus, and August of this year, at a time when I was already on the primary drugs used in treatment: Plavix and statins. Then just after we had gone over the fact that those drugs are used because, in the great majority of cases, the problem is atheroscleratic in origin, a fasting lipid test report from last week was faxed over from the lab, and it was absolutely normal! So whatever it is, can't be atheroscleratic in origin.

Bottom line, if something is actually going on, we're not going to waste time treating the wrong disease. And I say if, because, as luck has it, the 2007 study was read by one of the best neuroradiologists in town. So, on Wednesday morning I will be delivering to his office CDs of the 2 studies I've had over the last six weeks, and independent of the reports of the other radiologists, he can read the images side by side an offer an opinion as to the precise extent of the changes and how "normal" the situation is for a 56 year old man. If it's normal, then the perceived cognitive changes including increases in both disorganization and the time it takes me to get a sentence out (either verbally or on a keyboard) can be chalked up to medications. And even if that's not how it goes, at least we know how not to treat it.

Meanwhile, I'm in for a good read. So no worries.

Mike

Good to hear you have it in good hands Mike!

I wouldn't expect anything else from you but still worry nonetheless when I hear about a TIA. I don't have the kind of scientific mind you have but I used to teach emergency first aid and a TIA was always a great topic for conversation amongst the flight attendant group I was instructing. I would usually need to let them share their experiences on board with passengers with this type of medical emergency and then reign them back into the subject at hand "How to treat a TIA".

How did your appointment go with the independent radiologist today? I know how frustrating the cognitive effects from the meds and pain are for you and I'm very interested in the results of your appointment. I hope for you it's just a matter of the meds, something that can be changed.

I'm curious because yesterday we had our first day of heavy cold fall rains here, I knew it as soon as I woke up in the morning, my pain had increased significantly and my brain function seemed to be slowed down to the point of not being able to function properly. I had trouble moving about the house, not to mention navigating the 3 levels of stairs here. But getting the words out was such a struggle; even as I sat to type on the computer everything was jumbled nothing matched on the screen to what my brain was thinking . I have trouble organizing my daily routine, responsibilities when this happens and my husband can see it in my eyes, he just tells me to rest. I thank god for the Google toolbar spell check because I seem to be typing everything backwards. It was very noticeable yesterday and I had purposely decided to stop taking my 1200 mg of ibuprofen because I'd been experiencing very uncomfortable bowel /stomach pain under my left rib for the past few days (this has been going on for a few months off and on). I'm at the tail end of my Lidocaine and have always relied on the ibuprofen as a first line of defence and daily stable but I fear it's now causing harm with my intestines despite taking it with food. I wondered if it was possible to have withdrwals from ibprofen? I had to have one tonight along with a Tylenol 3, just couldn;t stand it the pain any longer and I'm thinking a little more clear now.

So bottom line is I'm not on very much medication yet I can I can feel this type of increasing pain lowering my cognitive abilities. Is this what you meant when you referred to the feeling of the wind –up phase coming on?

I hope you are well today.

MsL

PS: (Please send out some good prayers and positive thoughts for me. Tomorrow we have another showing of our house and we really need someone some help to make the other very interested buyers decide to make us an offer. It's been a tough market to try to sell in and I need all the help we can get to make it a reality so I can to move to one level living and be with my husband this winter) :hug:

And to you Mslday -

Turns out the neuroradiologist won't be back until Friday, so maybe I'll hear something by early next week. Meanwhile, if it's cold and rainy in Vancouver until the weekend, would it be too over the top to leave an inviting fire on the hearth as you depart for the showing? (Assuming there's dry wood to be had.)

You ask about wind-up. To me it's a whole other issue from what some have termed "brain fog." Wind-up is actually an aspect of something called neurological recruitment, for which I'm looking for an exact scientific definition, but it's as though you're outside and know from subtle changes you can't put your finger on that a big storm is on its way: often it turns out to be something as simple as changes in the light, as it's suddenly refracted through a 14 km high thunderhead. Except that these sensations are part of the underlying signaling process iteself.

Way too late now, so I must ask your forgiveness if I cut off here.

Be well and GOOD LUCK with that house!

Mike