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In the fall of 2005, the Dalai Lama gave the inaugural Dialogues between Neuroscience and Society lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, DC. There were over 30,000 neuroscientists registered for the meeting, and it seemed as if most of them attended the talk. The Dalai Lama’s address was designed to highlight the areas of convergence between neuroscience and Buddhist thought about the mind, and to many in the audience he clearly achieved his objective. There was some controversy over his being invited to deliver this lecture insofar as he is both a head of state and a religious leader, and for that reason he largely stuck to his prepared text. But he strayed from the text at least once, reminding the audience that not only was he a Buddhist monk but also an enthusiastic proponent of modern technology.
Elaborating, he shared a confidence with the audience, telling the audience of scientists that meditating was hard work for him (even though he meditates for 4 hours every morning), and that if neuroscientists were able to find a way to put electrodes in his brain and provide him with the same outcome as he gets from meditating, he would be an enthusiastic volunteer. It turns out that a recent set of experiments, from researchers at MIT and Stanford, moves us a step closer to making his wish a reality.
The Dalai Lama’s interest in neuroscience has been reciprocated by at least some members of the neuroscience community. Reasoning that studying the brains of people who meditate might lead to novel insights about the human brain, investigations of long-term meditators has been fertile ground for scientific investigation, with some of the more rigorous work emerging from Richard Davidson’s laboratory at the University of Wisconsin. From the perspective of neuroscience, meditation can be characterized as a series of mental exercises by which one strengthens one’s control over the workings of their own brain. 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. Moreover, normally human brains produce only short bursts of gamma-synchrony. What was most remarkable about this study was that long-term meditators were able to produce sustained gamma-activity in a manner that had never previously been observed in any other human. As such, sustained gamma activity has emerged as a proxy for at least some aspects of the meditative state.
Gamma Waves
But what causes gamma rhythm? And are there any potential benefits of sustained gamma-activity? The strongest hypothesis for the cellular mechanisms underlying generation of the gamma rhythm is that it is due to the activation of fast-spiking interneurons in the cerebral cortex. In two new papers to be published in Nature, the laboratories of Christopher Moore and Li-Huei Tsai at MIT and Karl Deisseroth at Stanford tested this hypothesis directly. The experimenters utilized optogenetics, developing custom-designed viruses to infect only the fast-spiking interneurons of either the prefrontal or barrel cortex in mice with genetically engineered, light-sensitive cation channels. Then, they inserted fine optical fibers into the relevant region of the cortex, allowing light to be delivered to the infected neurons and thereby activating only the fast-spiking interneurons. (In essence, this allowed them to switch particular brain cells on and off.) In both experiments, selectively stimulating the fast-spiking interneurons evoked gamma oscillations, thereby confirming the hypothesis that these neurons drive the gamma rhythm.
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Add CommentFor me the guided meditation has helped a lot in making me feel calm, peaceful and centered. Also it reduces the level of stress due to day to day work. It sort of refreshes me at the beginning of the day and in the evening. I don't meditate for long time, in the evening I use short free guided meditations available at http://www.clicktomeditate.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeditation seems not to have harmed the Dalai Lama's sense of humour either
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith the goal of rapidly improving one's mental muscle, I can imagine the creation of "meditation implants" that are used like any other drug.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake a look at International Journal of Psychophysiology Feb 2009 article by Travis et al. A random assignment experiment found that over a ten week period students practising Transcendental Meditation showed greater brain integration, reduced sleepiness and increased ability to cope with stress compared with the control group.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a (had no choice then, but I am glad now that it went that way, because I would not have learned half of what I know from experience, and I guess it is still the classical inventor's path) non-academic researcher and seek access to FMRI time/tools to experiment with Jewish (Orthodox) meditation practices.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe academic partner ( who will have to come up with the expenses too; i seek no remuneration, but will write my own books too) to this research is welcome to all the credit; all I want is the knowledge.
I am uniquely qualified by my intellectual position within the Orthodox Jewish spectrum (I am a Carlebach Hasid, and have actively researched cognition, etc... all my life, let's say since age 16, but into science from age 4 - taught to read at 2 1/2...) to participate in this research .
Ask me any question at: pizzarebbe@gmail.com
Google my name or "pizzarebbe" ; meet me at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjD1zsvCH64
Eliahu Gal-Or, the Pizza Rebbe
Me'Or Modiim, ISRAEL
ISRAEL: +97254-9059329
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Horseshit
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe Dalai Lama has never waged war on China, or advocated independence,although Tibet was an independent nation before China invaded and killed 1,000,000 Tibetans,that is 1 in 6. He has asked that his culture not be destroyed by the Chinese, and westerners agree. His compassion and tolerance for the Chinese is truly remarkable.
Gamma waves are pretty fast, and so they have found the fast spike neurons locate in the inter-neuron portion, but they don't say what part of the neurocortex. Disappointing. Interesting that proficient meditators using the metacognition monitoring technique can sustain gamma. So with the imaging available did they use the tools to determine whether this improves any measures of cognition? Doesn't seem that they did. Does is improve the almighty "working memory"? Fascinating work, but how does it help anyone with mental disorders? Attentional switching known to be compromised in ADD? Anterior cingulate cortex to limbic interconnective breakdown in addiction? How does this help cognition?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGamma waves are pretty fast, and so they have found the fast spike neurons locate in the inter-neuron portion, but they don't say what part of the neurocortex. Disappointing. Interesting that proficient meditators using the metacognition monitoring technique can sustain gamma. So with the imaging available did they use the tools to determine whether this improves any measures of cognition? Doesn't seem that they did. Does is improve the almighty "working memory"? Fascinating work, but how does it help anyone with mental disorders? Attentional switching known to be compromised in ADD? Anterior cingulate cortex to limbic interconnective breakdown in addiction? How does this help cognition?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor more in-depth research details of the neurology of meditation, one may visit these webpages:-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rewiringthebrain.net/
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=39251
Rajnilu
Addendum to my prior comment:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot just meditation, but also other practices induce discrete neurophysiological changes, affecting but also affected by, consciousness. Phylacteries for instance, besides inducing various muscular feedback and changing the ratio of blood delivery to each brain emisphere, are IMHO devices resonating with the brain itself in the PetaHz range, as the letters are shaping a field which is detected by same.
There is much more to this subject than the simple hint above, and FMRI is the tool I need to establish this research's parameters; I am waiting for your feedback, and to find researchers with an interest in K-field, Microgravity, and similar.
What is Jewish Meditation? (Asked by Ven Shrikant on Researchgate.net)
Holy friend, I wish I could tell you in a few lines or even pages, but it's like riding bicycles, theory alone is not sufficient to convey the idea, yet a three year old hits it easily by just a couple of bruises.
By your name, you should already know what is meditation, perhaps a decent number of varieties; and you know what a mantra is, and maybe know a few.
About being a Jew, which would make your question redundant, tonight is the night when Jews celebrate the receiving of Torah (Our Holy Scriptures, AKA 10 commandments, from which 613 are extrapolated, giving form to a bibliography of millions of pages, all meant at catching that elusive Haha spark of understanding).
To put it simply a Jew prays, and so do many other persuasions and communities; those who in the name of rationality consider prayer a quaint superstition or worse, simply miss out on the cognitive gymnastics it offers; and the Talmud is a sea brimming with the delicious, nutritious knowledge.
The Hebrew language is to all the other ones I know as Linux is to Windows, and the semantics so much more intuitive and smooth; there are too many languages I have not learned yet, and I look forward to discoveriing more, but this statement is based only on comparing English, French, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew, with conversational German, and of course Latin and Greek which I have promptly forgotten but can recall when I need them.
When a Jew meditates on the Oneness of the Universe and its Origin, conceptual and physical tools are employed, resulting on eating your candy bar but not the wrapper, whereas discarding it on the basis of the wrapper's looks is the mistake made by the so-self-calling "Brights"; I hope that among scientists who actually seek science rather than political correctness I am not making myself unwelcome by admitting that I believe in G-d, while stating that of the G-d I believe in they cannot possibly have any idea because they are looking at the outside but not admitting that there is an inside to it.
My religion very specifically does not seek to make adepts among the rest of the world's people, who are welcome to their own practices; I will say en passant that many atheists are so fanatical about propagating their world view, just like missionaires, that I find it hard to distinguish them from each other.
Repeating a mantra, which can be a very long one, causes a physiological change, of which I am sure you are aware; in yoga you can will them, and so in Judaism, but the conceptual background is different, and so the results must be too.
If you have read already some material on Judaism please tell me which, to give me the choice of a language you can understand.
And if you have not been to Israel yet, and this applies to all this group, please give me the privilege of welcoming you to the Holy Land, because a place's energy speaks clearer than millions of words.
I travel the world to make a living, but it's only in Israel that I have a life.
All the best,
EGO
Addendum to my prior comment:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot just meditation, but also other practices induce discrete neurophysiological changes, affecting but also affected by, consciousness. Phylacteries for instance, besides inducing various muscular feedback and changing the ratio of blood delivery to each brain emisphere, are IMHO devices resonating with the brain itself in the PetaHz range, as the letters are shaping a field which is detected by same.
There is much more to this subject than the simple hint above, and FMRI is the tool I need to establish this research's parameters; I am waiting for your feedback, and to find researchers with an interest in K-field, Microgravity, and similar.
What is Jewish Meditation? (Asked by Ven Shrikant on Researchgate.net)
Holy friend, I wish I could tell you in a few lines or even pages, but it's like riding bicycles, theory alone is not sufficient to convey the idea, yet a three year old hits it easily by just a couple of bruises.
By your name, you should already know what is meditation, perhaps a decent number of varieties; and you know what a mantra is, and maybe know a few.
About being a Jew, which would make your question redundant, tonight is the night when Jews celebrate the receiving of Torah (Our Holy Scriptures, AKA 10 commandments, from which 613 are extrapolated, giving form to a bibliography of millions of pages, all meant at catching that elusive Haha spark of understanding).
To put it simply a Jew prays, and so do many other persuasions and communities; those who in the name of rationality consider prayer a quaint superstition or worse, simply miss out on the cognitive gymnastics it offers; and the Talmud is a sea brimming with the delicious, nutritious knowledge.
The Hebrew language is to all the other ones I know as Linux is to Windows, and the semantics so much more intuitive and smooth; there are too many languages I have not learned yet, and I look forward to discoveriing more, but this statement is based only on comparing English, French, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew, with conversational German, and of course Latin and Greek which I have promptly forgotten but can recall when I need them.
When a Jew meditates on the Oneness of the Universe and its Origin, conceptual and physical tools are employed, resulting on eating your candy bar but not the wrapper, whereas discarding it on the basis of the wrapper's looks is the mistake made by the so-self-calling "Brights".>>>
>>> I hope that among scientists who actually seek science rather than political correctness I am not making myself unwelcome by admitting that I believe in G-d, while stating that of the G-d I believe in they cannot possibly have any idea because they are looking at the outside but not admitting that there is an inside to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy religion very specifically does not seek to make adepts among the rest of the world's people, who are welcome to their own practices; I will say en passant that many atheists are so fanatical about propagating their world view, just like missionaires, that I find it hard to distinguish them from each other.
Repeating a mantra, which can be a very long one, causes a physiological change, of which I am sure you are aware; in yoga you can will them, and so in Judaism, but the conceptual background is different, and so the results must be too.
If you have read already some material on Judaism please tell me which, to give me the choice of a language you can understand.
And if you have not been to Israel yet, and this applies to all this group, please give me the privilege of welcoming you to the Holy Land, because a place's energy speaks clearer than millions of words.
I travel the world to make a living, but it's only in Israel that I have a life.
All the best,
EGO
This is facinating work. I'd like to see an analysis on how the work of the Dalai Lama has helped hard-core religious individuals accept scientific progress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is facinating work! I would like to see an analysis showing the impact the Dalai Lama has had on bridging the gap between religion and science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI found the the article interesting but I think it is essential to consider the forest as well as the trees. In my experience the value of meditation is to develop an awareness behind one's emotional and mental processes, in this way gaining a greater degree of control over the longterm course of one's life. Meditation stills the short term sympathetic system that fuels immediate action often in reactionary ways. It also accesses more fundamental parasympathetic archetypes that are related to the long term interests of the individual and the species. See the website article Inside Our Three Brains at www.cosmic-mindreach.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuite interesting actualy, this shows how important it is to expand your maind. It is said that humans only use about 5 percent of their brain and yet they have achieved amazing things, so just imagine what could be done using 20, 30, 50.....100 percent. There are no limits for perfection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt only shows how important it is to expand your mind. it is said that humans only use about 5 percent of their brain ant yet they have achieved amazing things, so just imagine what could be done using 20, 30, 50.....100 percent ? There are no limits for perfection. "thus spoke Zarathustra"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorking some years ago as a marriage counsellor in the UK, I found that some clients were unable to focus their minds on constructive examination of their problems until they had spent some time in deep relaxation, akin to meditation. Once they had been taught deep relaxation they only needed to do it for 5 or 10 minutes at the beginning of a work session.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou obviously do not know the Dali Lama. He advocates non violent means of independance and infact promotes living peacefully among all parties. The guy loves Chinese rather than wars against him. I'll take that form of 'terrorism' any day versus those who espose ideology of segregation, fear, and hatred.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is incredible how you echo this medieval beliefs of a member of a "culture" that practiced slavery. So meditation means no thinking? What a waste of time!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeditation means to clear your mind, and come down - relax. Meditation does not have to be very long, it can be 5 - 10 minutes. It is clearing your mind and not thinking just for short time in order to think much more clearer in the future, and it is alsow proved that people who meditate deal with stress much more better than the non meditating ones.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is absolute, uninformed nonsense. Learn some history before making a fool of yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wrote a comment and was unable to login to confirm it because somehow my password had been changed, and while I regained my password that comment was gone but must still be somewhere in the system, so I am asking whomever is part of the system to find my comment and put it in.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you,
Eliahu Gal-Or
I would not think meditation is something scientific.Any meditationist discovered anything in the world.Even Dalailama didnot find an haven for him in Tibet.If he has some special power due to meditation why can't he solve the Tibetan issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would not think there is anything scientific in Meditation.Any meditationist discovered anything in this world.Even Dalailama didnot have a haven in Tibet. If he has some extra power due to Meditation why can't he solve the Tibetan Isuue.All this are superstitions propagated by Religious lobbies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly ignorant can think like that.The remaining percent is utilised to the 5 or 10% to work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am from India ,the land of meditation who knows very well about the history and the deceptive tricks of meditation.This all are to satisfy silly minded people.What all these meditators and spiritualists Gurus needed.Money, Power and beautiful girls for their nights even though they are preaching the opposites.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is particularly important for parents dealing with children with ADHD and related problems. We examine this issue on our site thebuzzonlife.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is particularly important for parents of children with ADHD and related issues. We cover this topic on our site thebuzzonlife.com, as well as many other related health and wellness issues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you know the 'forefather' of Dalai lama,Sidhartha the founder of Budhism.He gave up his new born son and lovely help less wife in one night and searched happiness of his own.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the result. He also became a reason for a logical religion ,than other religions but a large mass of stupid illogic followers like other religions who are contrary to the founder itself.
Neuroscientists will never ever get to define brain function in a way to control it from its relative aspect. Whatever effective , creative and intelligent ways utilized to "understand" in order to "control" would lead to failure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy? This is due to many factors. The key factor to understand anything is to invent certain thing of the same level. To work from the gross to a subtle state of the brain is nonsense and an everlasting void. The effective correct way has to be in the opposite direction i.e working from the subtle states of the mind to understand its function on the gross level.
Does the thought originate from the gross level of one's consciousness? Does it come by chance or has the thought originated from subtle states?
Control!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRewiring the brain may work but I pratice the Ishaya's Ascension. It is a practice that can be used with eyes open and is simpler than any meditation I have ever experienced. When I talk to people with long meditation experience they are excited about having "the closed eyed experience" with their eyes open.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen meditating (with eyes closed), I sometimes see rhythmically changing light patterns at a period of about 0.3 Hz (i.e. a period of about 3 seconds) and have wondered if they correlated with the slow delta (not fast gamma) waves. Has anyone else experienced this or know anything about it?
Herb
your research is very interesting.Really nerves are NOT functioning like electrical wires but optical fibers . electromagnetic waves absorbed from emissions of sun ,stars etc.. The spinal code absorbs these EM waves and brings them to brain and from there it reaches the whole body including motor organ and sensory organs through the whole nerve systems . Meditation helps to absorb more of these energies .But the nerves in the brain are surrounded with more impurities it may cause
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissevere diseases such as epilepsy schizophrenia . there for meditators should keep maximum purity of foods .meat of large animals should be avoided .Fish etc.. fresh as far as possible priority should be given for vegetarian diet .for more information see the blog of my instructor Mohandas Govindan -medithealth.blogspot.com
The energy emitted from brain is really electromagnetic not electrical .u can see the proof for this in http://youtu.be/5DS6_DYV3Rs (an experiment done about this at TRIVANDRUM ,INDIA
I guess a few commentators missed this statement in the article: "sustained gamma-activity is not identical to meditation. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr, putting it in more familiar terms: "having a cough is not identical to having bronchitis." Which means, don't confuse cause and effect.
Of course we must expect that certain brain areas are active when composers make music,
and other areas are active when people learn languages, etc. That doesn't mean we can "activate" the corresponding brain areas or mimic the corresponding EEG waves and make people multi-lingual, or decent musicians.
Mimicking the outer physical signs and symptoms of the meditation habit is not the same as turning people into expert meditators, whether it is physical posture that is mimicked or physical brain activity that is mimicked. Otherwise people would have long ago learnt that one can be an expert plumber by simply holding a pipe wrench. And if it doesn't happen with other physical processes then why should it be the case with physical electrical signs?
But, at least with common activities like tying shoelaces there seems to be some value in determining the brain areas involved with the activities (it might one day help understand medical paralysis etc.)But what is the value, except to religions, in studying these outer signs of the meditation habit?
We know that walking, music composition and so on are valuable skills, but nobody has yet demonstrated that meditation is something that it is "good" to be "good" at. We don't even have proper scientific studies that conclusively show any real "benefits" of the meditation habit, relative to adequate controls or to "simpler" methods, or that there aren't better ways than meditation to build "attention", or that it is "good" to build "attention," and yet here we are rushing to use expensive fMRIs, and taking valuable research time from important projects, so that a few religious zealots can discover what physical brain areas are active during the physical stages of the meditation habit. And it gets even more ridiculous to go on and talk about injecting people with meditation improving viruses before you have firmly established if meditation is a desirable habit.
Talk about "nonsense" science and abuse of fMRIs by putting the cart before the horse. The pope might as well have told Galileo to stop gazing at the stars and look for some way to use a telescope to investigate what happens to people's ear hairs when they pray.
FruitcakeScience