All you happy Buddhists

[Liokault]

An artical in this months New Scientist magazine showing that buddhists can affect there own level of happyness by medatation not only during the time that they are medatating but also in the long term,

"Activity in the left prefrontal lobe indicates positive emotions and good mood, whereas persistant activity in the right prefrontal lobes indicates negative emotion. The first Buddhist practitioner studied by Davidson showed more left prefrontal lobe activity than anyone he had ever stuided before"


And so on.

[David Jamieson]

I would think that would apply to many forms of meditators and not just those of the buddhist variety.

cheers

[Former castleva]

Sounds a bit "pop". :cool:

[Former castleva]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993744

New Scientist.

[ZIM]

It's coz the Buddha was telling the punchline to a joke nobody has told yet... ;)

Koan: "What was the original joke?"

[Guile]

cool

[GeneChing]

Can you link us to the original article? Or at least provide a proper biblio reference...

[norther practitioner]

yahoo (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030522/hl_nm/meditation_buddhists_dc_1)

They needed a study to know this....lol

[kungfu cowboy]

They needed a study to make such an observation without just relying on opinion or personal bias, which are subjective. Objective studies that control for extraneous variables uncover real relationships between variables, like meditation to brain activity.

[dwid]

Shambala Sun had an article about this a couple of issues ago. They brought a monk into the lab and he engaged in different types of meditation that each lit up different parts of the brain.

[Liokault]

But this article is saying that the happy areas of the brain stay lit up even when the bubdhist is not meditating.

Was a lot more to it than that but im not about to type it all out.

[dwid]

No wonder I've been increasingly depressed since I stopped meditating regularly. I wonder if there's an element of withdrawal involved in losing that quality.

[norther practitioner]

dwid,
possibly,

cowboy, as if I wasn't being sarcastic.

[kungfu cowboy]

Oops! I'm sorry! Sometimes my idiocy brilliantly shines through!:p

[ZIM]

Thats a really interesting observation, dwid.

Logicaly speaking, your brain is balancing out- giving more 'energy' to the right hemisphere [which is sorta more naturally disposed towards pessimism, IIRC].

Question: do you dream more, or less? Been more emotional, etc? Is there any history of depression or seasonal depression in your family? [you don't have to answer any of that, but esp. the last, if you don't want to].

Reason I ask: its been said that children born into depression-history families typically have higher than average activity in the right frontal lobe. Meditatiion typically stimulates the left, and trains that.

NP: you're an artist right? Are you more right brained, do you think? Curious, not sarcastic. I know I'm more naturally disposed towards that.

[norther practitioner]

love the arts... appreciate them to no end... I dance with a popping crew sometimes. But other than that, and my long fist forms, my artistic expression sucks. I'm an engineer, very technical minded......

[Christopher M]

Ya gotta be carefull with cognitive neuroscience (correlating areas of neural activation observed via imaging techniques to psychological states); it's a young discipline - especially if we're talking about the pre-frontal lobe, which is a notoriously obscure area, psychologically speaking.

People, including the scientists involved, are far too quick to give something special consideration if they can find brain changes associated with it. However, unless you believe in mind-body dualism, any change in behavior, emotion, cognition, and so on should be correlated with a change in the nervous system. I'm saying that, really, this isn't surprising and shouldn't change anything.

The best ways of examining psychological change are still psychodiagnostics and psychodynamics, though they may not be en vogue! Would be nice to see studies on this topic with that approach, or even better, cognitive neuroscientists collaborating with this approach!

Meditation has long been associated with kindling (http://nba19.med.uth.tmc.edu/homepage/erich/kindle.htm), which could be the brain mechanism responsable for these changes.

Playing devil's advocate, one could reasonably argue that such long-term brain changes, even if they are correlated with happiness, may be unhealthy.

[dwid]

Question: do you dream more, or less? Been more emotional, etc? Is there any history of depression or seasonal depression in your family? [you don't have to answer any of that, but esp. the last, if you don't want to].

Not sure about the dreaming. I know I sleep more fitfully, and what dreams I do remember are generally less pleasant.

Definitely been more emotional, or rather, more prone to rapid changes in affect such as wired to irritable in a relatively short period.

No documented history of depression in the family, but I've often theorized that there is some low level undiagnosed depression going on. My family was never one to speak of such things, however.

[ZIM]

dwid-
yeah, i understand the lack of speaking of 'such things' within a family. There's a lot of depression gone undiagnosed, but also far more diagnosed than IMHO should be. Thats probably becoz we, in the US, place such a high premium on being 'happy' all of the time. So we give everyone 'soma', more or less.

The rest of the changes you note are really interesting to me, becoz I still occassionally get to work with depressed persons and I'm still out on whather or not meditation is a good way to go for them, or what kind, etc. My next question is: does it go both ways? When you start up again, do the changes tend to stop? How long does that take, if so?

CM- you're more of a brain man than I, so I can do little other than simply agree! :) The link was pretty cool, and I know I'll have to dig further into it. Some of the authors in the listings are familiar to me... oh joy! ;)


The best ways of examining psychological change are still psychodiagnostics and psychodynamics Opinion or fact? Ha! j/k. So, you believe that change can occur- are drugs needed? Do drugs change things? This is idle curiousity on my part... no need for args. :cool:

[dwid]

Are you familiar with current research on mindfulness based therapies within clinical psych?

The implications in a lot of this research seem to be that mindfulness practices in general have a place in therapy.

As far as me personally, I think my emotional stability and sleep habits are probably partly affected by my meditation habits, but are much more affected by my exercise habity. Nothing like running yourself to exhaustion to (1) get that nice endorphin buzz and (2) to stabilize your sleep cycle.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by ZIM
CM- you're more of a brain man than I, so I can do little other than simply agree!

Well... I'm not towing the party line. I believe the contemporary brain sciences to be implicitly dualistic, though they would adamantly deny it. I'm thinking here particularly of the unsettling tendancy to declare mental health problems a neurological disease if it can be correlated to brain-state changes, and a psychiatric disease if it cannot. So where do they think the "change" is during truly psychiatric disease, in the soul? :p

Same with my thoughts on cognitive neuroscience. It's not the party line; I'm just a skeptic. "We asked our subjects to think of ducks and this part of the brain lit up, so we now know this is the duck-thinking area" is just too simplistic for me.


The link was pretty cool, and I know I'll have to dig further into it.

Yeah; although kindling is usually spoken of in reference to epilepsy, I think it's best to think of it along the lines of neuroplasticity in general, as in long-term potentiation and Hebbian dynamics. The basic idea being those present in motivation theory; that repeated, strong stimulation of a given circuit (in absense of contrary stimulation and so on...) is going to reinforce it's responses. This should be true whether the stimulation is endogenous or exogenous; from meditation or ECT.


Opinion or fact?

:p I'd really like to see more correlative studies utilizing cognitive neuroscience approaches along with other methods like the traditional psychological ones. This really is the way to go with young disciplines to show their validity... we're being held back on one hand because it's young enough that we're not sure quite how to go about doing that, and on the other hand because everyone has such a ******* about the brain (and reductionism in general) that they give it special priveleges.


So, you believe that change can occur- are drugs needed? Do drugs change things?

I don't think the brain can tell between endogenous (meditation, psychotherapy) and exogenous (drugs, ECT) stimulation, as such. Change occurs naturally following any stimulation. Endogenous stimulation generally has the character of following the body's natual paths of input, as opposed to exogenous. This would effect the outcome of each, for better and worse.

[ZIM]

dwid-
yep, a little familiar with mindfulness-oriented approaches. I know the japanese have developed a few of that sort [morita therapy?]. I'm not, unfortunately, well-versed in the literature for it. Generally, I'm a cross-bred Lacanian/cognitive-behaviorist. I confuse myself with that mix! :D I agree wholeheartedly with the exercise thing, tho- trying to get a depressed person to do it is another matter! ;)

[Christopher M]

CBT/Lacanian!? :eek:

Shocking people every time you encounter resistance, and giving them candy when they make a Freudian slip? :p

[ZIM]

alot of stuff here
Well... I'm not towing the party line. I believe the contemporary brain sciences to be implicitly dualistic, though they would adamantly deny it. I'm thinking here particularly of the unsettling tendancy to declare mental health problems a neurological disease if it can be correlated to brain-state changes, and a psychiatric disease if it cannot. So where do they think the "change" is during truly psychiatric disease, in the soul? Yes to the dualism part. Psychiatric disease, by definition, should be a physically-oriented thing, like a lesion on/in the brain. Psychological ailments are less defined. I'm parsing the name here -iatric rel. to physicians. The fault for the dualism lies in the history of the two disciplines, one phycial the other philosophical, both very western and Empiricist. Shaking that foundation is rough and radical. I don't know whether it would help, either....
I'd really like to see more correlative studies utilizing cognitive neuroscience approaches along with other methods like the traditional psychological ones. This really is the way to go with young disciplines to show their validity... we're being held back on one hand because it's young enough that we're not sure quite how to go about doing that, and on the other hand because everyone has such a ******* about the brain (and reductionism in general) that they give it special priveleges. So, you're using cognitive as the baseline? Or the other way around?
I don't think the brain can tell between endogenous (meditation, psychotherapy) and exogenous (drugs, ECT) stimulation, as such. Change occurs naturally following any stimulation. Endogenous stimulation generally has the character of following the body's natual paths of input, as opposed to exogenous. This would effect the outcome of each, for better and worse. I agree that the brain cannot, but the body often can. An exogenous stimulant is all-too-often a chemical one, artificially produced, and thus is chemically symmetric... problems with side effects, not to mention getting past brain-blood barriers in the first place. Change does occur- in the brain, at least. Some long-term takers of meds have structural changes...which begs the question of whether or not they'd have been ok without them or with another approach. We don't know. A human is an unrepeatable experiment-each and every one.

I think, because we're so dualistic and anxious for publishable result that we miss other opportunities...a forest and trees problem, in fact. What are we trying to change, and to what? 'Normal' is not a drooling quiet man with a twitch. Not a maniac either... we forget the human face too often, maybe.
Shocking people every time you encounter resistance, and giving them candy when they make a Freudian slip? Pretty accurate! HA! I like to challenge and break up thinking patterns, and its easy for me to slip into another's role.... That and i'm an argumentative and humorous mensch.... it's almost like gestalt...hehe

[ZIM]

NP- you've prolly got a balanced brain, visually oriented. You want a test to find out? Lots of them online. here's one (http://www.tangischools.org/schools/phs/techno/dayfour.htm)

dwid- do you have any links to mindfulness-therapy-oriented research?

[Former castleva]

I would write something but I´m far too depressed.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Zim
So, you're using cognitive as the baseline? Or the other way around?

Either/or. I'd just like to see more integration. For instance, regarding the original study: rather than correlating higher left PFC activation with long term meditation and implying happiness, I'd like to see a correlation with PFC activation, long term meditation, and a psychodiagnostic profile, implying happiness. Basically it's the PFC activation --implies--> happiness leap which I am uncomfortable with, and which I think needs the extra validity that integrative experiments would lend.


An exogenous stimulant is all-too-often a chemical one, artificially produced, and thus is chemically symmetric... problems with side effects, not to mention getting past brain-blood barriers in the first place.

I think we're clinching on semantics here.

I don't think the body itself has any mechanism for distinguishing articifial from natural, nor endogenous from exogenous. If a receptor is activated, it's activated, regardless of what caused it to be activated. However, I accept that there are differences. These differences I place under the rubric of "endogenous stimulation follows the natural paths of input." For instance, it might be impossible to get an endogenous stimulation of a single receptor type because the endogenous reactions would automatically stimulate a bunch of other receptors in concert; whereas you might be able to get the former specificity using a drug. It's not that the body knows this is a drug, it's that the route of administration (from ingestion to receptor activation) is different (insofar as it doesn't follow the natural paths of input).

Anyway... pretty sure we're just clinching on semantics here.


What are we trying to change, and to what?

Depends if the "we" has studied any Lacan or not. :p

[ZIM]

Depends if the "we" has studied any Lacan or not. Oui, et touche. :D Yes, I think a semantic problem- you were taking a more detailed 'interior' view than I. No worries on that. Interesting method for the integration- I'll have to give it some thought. The primary problem is getting all those disparate egos in the same room for the cooperation... ;) After that, the commonalities... Do you think you'll have the opportunity to puruse that, maybe as a research project? If so, you'd need something that showcased the worth of the approach so as to engender further cooperativeness.

You don't want much, do you? ;)

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by ZIM
Do you think you'll have the opportunity to puruse that, maybe as a research project?

Integrating cog neurosci with psychodiagnostics and/or psychodynamics?

[ZIM]

Nah, not the integration---too much to ask! But the correlative studies, as your 'for instance', above.

[Christopher M]

Hmmm... probably not something quite like that. Although if the last four years are any indication, who knows where my interests will be in a few more.

I've got strong interests in that general field... it seems intensely obscure at times, but it may just be gaining momentum, following the interest shown by groups like this (http://www.neuro-psychoanalysis.org/).

Don't wanna talk about it outside email too much though.

[dwid]

Here are a couple of books...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1572307064/qid=1053700411/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-2959383-0479248?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1572304812/qid=1053700509/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-2959383-0479248?v=glance&s=books

Check these out, and you can do a litsearch of the authors on Psychlit or something for other materials. Steve Hayes is at the University of Nevada, Reno. I don't know about the others. I actually interviewed with Hayes this year and discovered he's not really interested in mindfulness anymore. I can explain the rationale more clearly if you'd like to e-mail me (tichy.1@osu.edu). But, anyway, others are picking up the torch and there's a small but noticeable movement in clinical right now to study mindfulness approaches. I think it goes hand in hand with clinical people finally giving some credence to some of the stuff the positive psychology people have been espousing for a long time.

Anyway, I'd be happy to go into greater length if you e-mail me.

[ZIM]

dwid-
interesting approach! I'm going to spend a little more time with the sample pages, then get back to you.

Usually, most of my time is spent breaking the impasses presented... it's like a bulldozer versus erosion. :)

CM-
Good link. I gave some thought to the idea... I came up with other frameworks, but then I don't have the same kind of background or interest.