Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks

[Celebration]

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-mindfulness-meditation-brain-weeks.html

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.

"Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day," says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program, the study's senior author. "This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing."

Previous studies from Lazar's group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced mediation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.

For the current study, MR images were take of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation – which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings and state of mind – participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images were also taken of a control group of non-meditators over a similar time interval.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Very interesting

There is also some evidence that mindfulness training can have some positive effects in depression.


www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002397/

[Odin2005]

2. isn't this old news?

I read about this in a book a couple years ago that got me interested in meditation in the first place.

[Celebration]

3. yes and no

this one was the first prospective study, I think. The others have just been associations.

[Odin2005]

4. Ah, OK!

[Warpy]

6. Meditation practitioners and teachers have said it for a long time

but this is the first study to back it up with hard data. And pictures!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

5. A form of meditation helps me with my anxiety and panic disorders

And it's free. :)