Ed Neurology: Science (or lack of) behind meditation

[Richard Masters]

Didn't actually read the entire post by Cainkane1, (I skimmed it), but this part looked really interesting:

For instance, the brain has a region, the parietal lobe, that detects where our body physically ends and the larger world begins. But this circuitry can be silenced by intense prayer or meditation, neuroscientist Andrew Newberg has found, producing a sense of oneness with the cosmos or God.

Is there any medical benefit to silencing the part that separates self from the larger world? If so, how does one meditate effectively? I've read a few studies in psychology and neurology on the topic, but nothing conclusive.

After taking a Tai Chi class in college, going through the motions (a while back, I think it was Tai Chi), and deriving no benefit (apart from being forced to wake up before 8am), I am of the opinion that it was nothing but woo.

On the other hand, I'm familiar with the placebo effect, and maybe prayer and meditation fall into that category. Is anybody familiar with any evidence in either direction (that is, meditation can serve some measurable or justifiable medical purpose or not)? To be more precise, I'm wondering (assuming that it's not just a vanilla placebo effect) whether meditation could be helpful in treating clinical depression.

My guess is the answer is no, since I've never heard a doctor recommend it, but to be honest modern antidepressants seem to be quite ineffective (in my case), so I'm looking for other solutions (but NOT woo).

 

[Michael Mozina]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051110215950.htm

 

[Richard Masters]

Thanks Michael, also from Science Daily I see the following: Therapeutic Value Of Meditation Unproven, Says Study which is a later study.

It'd be nice to know if they knew of the one you posted at the time of publishing.

ETA: They must have, since it was a meta-study of 813 other studies on meditation.

From your article: "What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's grey matter." Sounds it's wishful thinking on the part of the researcher; Did they find a correlation or did they narrow down causation?... after all it's plausible that people attracted to meditation already have more gray matter, and not that the practice of meditation increased it.

 

[Richard Masters]

More:
Meditate To Concentrate

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2007) — Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that practicing even small doses of daily meditation may improve focus and performance.

...
Meditation, according to Penn neuroscientist Amishi Jha and Michael Baime, director of Penn's Stress Management Program, is an active and effortful process that literally changes the way the brain works. Their study is the first to examine how meditation may modify the three subcomponents of attention, including the ability to prioritize and manage tasks and goals, the ability to voluntarily focus on specific information and the ability to stay alert to the environment.

In the Penn study, subjects were split into two categories. Those new to meditation, or "mindfulness training," took part in an eight-week course that included up to 30 minutes of daily meditation. The second group was more experienced with meditation and attended an intensive full-time, one-month retreat.

Researchers found that even for those new to the practice, meditation enhanced performance and the ability to focus attention. Performance-based measures of cognitive function demonstrated improvements in a matter of weeks.
...

 

[Richard Masters]

OK, but what exactly is meditation?

Am I meditating when I'm driving like a drone through a familiar stretch?
... when I'm wondering about meditation?
Does it require silence? physical movement?
Am I meditating when I improvise on the piano?
Or do I have to imagine some fictitious order in the universe?

 

[jasonpatterson]

In the Meditate to Concentrate study, it would appear that they didn't compare the groups to any sort of controls at all. One wonders what 'mindfulness training' involves, and whether any group of people who practiced being attentive for half an hour a day for a full month wouldn't wind up being more attentive at the end of it... All the study appears to show is that it is possible to train people to focus their attention more consciously than is normally done.

 

[Michael Mozina]

In the Meditate to Concentrate study, it would appear that they didn't compare the groups to any sort of controls at all.

I think that's a valid criticism of many scientific studies, not just studies on meditation by the way. It does seem to be a problem.

One wonders what 'mindfulness training' involves, and whether any group of people who practiced being attentive for half an hour a day for a full month wouldn't wind up being more attentive at the end of it... All the study appears to show is that it is possible to train people to focus their attention more consciously than is normally done.

I would argue that this is the whole point of meditation.

 

[Richard Masters]

In the Meditate to Concentrate study, it would appear that they didn't compare the groups to any sort of controls at all. One wonders what 'mindfulness training' involves, and whether any group of people who practiced being attentive for half an hour a day for a full month wouldn't wind up being more attentive at the end of it... All the study appears to show is that it is possible to train people to focus their attention more consciously than is normally done.

In that study, it could be that the subjects learned or simply got better (as one would by simply studying or reading) at the specific performance-based measures of cognitive function used to evaluate them.

ETA:

Participants performed tasks at a computer that measured response speeds and accuracy.

Maybe they got better at handling the mouse, joystick, or input device. Or they got better at interpreting the tasks demanded of them.

 

[Michael Mozina]

OK, but what exactly is meditation?

Hmmm. I suspect you'll get a lot of different answers to that question. I would loosely describe it as a process of learning to quiet one's thoughts and focus one's attention.

Am I meditating when I'm driving like a drone through a familiar stretch?

Nah, you're probably daydreaming if you're anything like me.

... when I'm wondering about meditation?

I would argue that you're just "thinking" at that point, not really meditating.

Does it require silence?

Generally speaking yes. The idea is typically to "quiet one's mind" as well as one's speech.

physical movement?

I typically find it necessary to breath while meditating.

Am I meditating when I improvise on the piano?

I would say probably not, but I suppose it depends on what you're thinking about while doing it. Music has a way of stimulating a lot of the same areas of the brain as I understand it. It can also be a very effective way of quieting one's thoughts.

Or do I have to imagine some fictitious order in the universe?

Nah. There is however general agreement that there is order to the universe even among atheists.

 

[Richard Masters]

Hmmm. I suspect you'll get a lot of different answers to that question. I would loosely describe it as a process of learning to quiet one's thoughts and focus one's attention.

Seems like the studies on meditation have a lot of noise to sift through before they isolate a common definition.

Nah, you're probably daydreaming if you're anything like me.

I would agree, but humor aside, is daydreaming mutually exclusive with meditation?

I would argue that you're just "thinking" at that point, not really meditating.

So is "thinking" here simulating counter-factual futures around a topic, whereas meditating is avoiding distraction while invoking some narrow idea or image?

...

Nah. There is however general agreement that there is order to the universe even among atheists.

True.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Seems like the studies on meditation have a lot of noise to sift through before they isolate a common definition.

I would tend to agree with that statement.

I would agree, but humor aside, is daydreaming mutually exclusive with meditation?

I would say generally speaking, yes. Generally the point of meditation is to quiet one's thoughts (or focus one's thoughts) and to quiet the mental "chatter" that is typical of our daily thought processes, not to engage oneself in the same mental chattering.

So is "thinking" here simulating counter-factual futures around a topic, whereas meditating is avoiding distraction while invoking some narrow idea or image?

Hmm. I'm not sure if I fully understand your question but let me try to answer it this way. Most folks live their entire life worrying about the future, or reliving the past in some way. Meditation is typically designed to help one "be here now", in the present moment, and to experience the present moment without all the mental chatter that typically keeps our minds occupied. Usually one learns to meditate by focusing one's thoughts on their breath, and to become aware (become the observer) of their own thought processes. The basic idea is to learn to focus one's attention on one thing and to not get lost in one's own random thought processes. One learns through meditation to become the "observer' of one's own thought processes, and ultimately to "control" them.

 

[Pixel42]

Interesting article summarising previous research in this area:

http://www.clinicallypsyched.com/neurotheologywithgodinmind.htm

 

[Tyooby]

An explanation of meditation that was useful to me is given in Opening the hand of thought by Kosho Uchiyama. You can read it online at Google Books, here. I mean the text that starts at page 52, under the heading "Waking up to life". The text refers to an illustration that can be found on page 54.

It explains how meditation, at least the Zen way of meditation (called zazen), doesn't mean you stop thinking, but you (try to) become aware of the fact you're thinking, when a thought arises. This awareness allows you to drop the line of thought and return to your concentration. For beginners (like me), this concentration is focused on the breath.

This is strictly my opinion: The skill you develop as you regularly meditate, is that of recognizing and letting go of useless or even harmful thoughts, and connecting with an inner peace that lies beneath your thoughts and feelings. It's like the bottom of a pond that you can see most clearly when the water surface isn't disturbed by the wind. Or like the blue sky: it's always there, even if it's obscured by clouds.

Concentration,a skill that you use and develop through meditation, is much harder to achieve during physical activity. Somehow it's easiest if you sit with your back straight. And it's easiest to keep your back straight for a prolonged time, if you sit with your butt elevated and your knees touching the floor, as you can see in the positions shown here.

 

[quadraginta]

Interesting article summarising previous research in this area:

http://www.clinicallypsyched.com/neurotheologywithgodinmind.htm

Thanks. That was a fun read.

Some parts of it suggest a whole new perspective on the term "religious nut". I hadn't ever really considered the idea of an organic pathology.

 

[Tapio]

OK, but what exactly is meditation?

These studies used two different distinct techniques.

The simplest of these meditation practices is ‘focused attention’ where one concentrates on a single object, for example one’s breath. When expert meditators practiced focused attention meditation, demonstrable changes were seen using fMRI in the networks of the brain that are known to modulate attention. A second set of experiments studied long-term meditators practicing ‘open monitoring meditation’, a more advanced meditation practice which in many ways is a form of metacognition: the objective is not to focus one’s attention but rather to use one’s brain to monitor the universe of mental experience without directing attention to any one task. The unexpected result of this experiment was that the EEG of long-term meditators exhibited much more gamma-synchrony than that of naive meditators.

Big up Dalai Lama for his work in encouraging scientific study into religious experience!

 

[Tricky]

Thread title changed at the request of the Opening Poster.

Posted By: Tricky

 

[casebro]

Umm, in another recent thread (I think) wasn't there a link to an article about real time MRI enabling a subject to actually control blood flow to (or use of) a particular part of his brain? The Parietal lobe mention above brought it back to me.

I did try meditation/self hypnosis. Basically, try to concentrate on something fairly meaningless- a fly speck on the wall, or the ticking of a clock? Meantime, try to feel your pulse in your hands. When I do feel my blood pulsing through your hands, my hand temperature raises from 94 to 97, as shown by holding a digital fever thermometer.

It didn't help what I was referred to the psychologist for- "muscle tension". Turned out a biopsy diagnosed my myopathy. Didn't help my BP either. But the relaxation technique has allowed me to remember the forgotten combination to a safe that I hadn't opened in 10 years.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Mindfulness based cognitive therapy - which incorporates meditation techniques - seems to be a promising therapy in the prevention of relapse of depression.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081130201928.htm

And it is recommended by NICE (NHS) in some circumstances:

Mindfulness-based CBT, usually delivered in a group format, should be considered for people who are currently well but have experienced three or more previous episodes of depression, because this may significantly reduce the likelihood of future relapse.

http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/CG23NICEguidelineamended.pdf

I'm doing it at the moment - I'll let you know if it works...

 

[Richard Masters]

Thanks for the information. I should mention that I had tried Qi Gong a while back, not Tai Chi (totally different).

As mentioned by some of you there's a difference between mindfulness meditation and concentration meditation. In my ignorance I happened upon concentration meditation. I'll keep practicing it for a week, and post my personal findings later.

Thus far, I'm surprised to see certain exercises recommended for depression. Personal bias I suppose. I'm also surprised by all the reasonable hypotheses surrounding physiological changes. For example, by avoiding the anxiety-inducing distractions of a ruminant mind, (mine), it may be possible to give my body a break from cortisol.

From Wikipedia:

"However, long-term exposure to cortisol results in damage to cells in the hippocampus. This damage results in impaired learning."

Consistent with my main symptoms.

"The desirability of inhibiting activity during infection is no doubt the reason why cortisol is responsible for creating euphoria. The desirability of not disturbing tissues weakened by infection or of not cutting off their blood supply could explain the inhibition of pain widely observed for cortisol."

Inconsistent with my symptoms, since I'm more likely to feel vague pain.

However, what if my nervous system is desensitized to the chronic release of cortisol via crh? Then the chronic pain makes sense.

So giving my body a rest from cortisol makes sense.

 

[Bikewer]

I've wondered about the similarity of what folks practicing meditation experience to the mind-state that artists (of various types) experience.
Often, while painting or sculpting, I'd get into a very similar state to what meditators call "mindfullness"; unaware of the passage of time, unresponsive to outside inputs...

Happens with reading as well.