[NYAPRS Enews] Study: Meditation Can 'Turn Off' Distressed Regions of the Brain

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Meditation Can 'Turn Off' Regions of the Brain

Brain Imaging Shows Experienced Meditators Can Prevent Their Minds From
Wandering

HealthDay News  November 22, 2011

 

A new study finds that people skilled at meditation seem able to turn
off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming and psychiatric
disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Learning more about how meditation works could help advance research
into a number of diseases, according to lead author Dr. Judson Brewer,
an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University.

He and his colleagues used functional MRI to assess brain activity in
experienced and novice meditators as they performed three different
meditation techniques.

Regardless of the type of meditation, skilled meditators had decreased
activity in the brain's default mode network, which has been linked to
attention lapses and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, and the buildup of beta amyloid plaques
associated with Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers also found that when the default mode network (which
consists of the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex) was
active, brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive
control were also activated in experienced meditators, but not novices.

This suggests that skilled meditators constantly monitor and suppress
the emergence of "me" thoughts and mind wandering. If they become too
strong, these two states of mind are associated with diseases such as
autism and schizophrenia.

The experienced meditators were able to co-activate the two brain
regions both during meditation and while resting, which suggests they
have developed a "new" default mode that's more present-centered and
less self-centered, the researchers said.

"Meditation's ability to help people stay in the moment has been part of
philosophical and contemplative practices for thousands of years,"
Brewer said in a Yale news release. "Conversely, the hallmark of many
forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one's own thoughts, a
condition meditation seems to affect. This gives us some nice cues as to
the neural mechanisms of how it might be working clinically."

The study appears Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.

 

More information

The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has
more about meditation
<http://nccam.nih.gov/health/meditation/overview.htm> .

 

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/ar
ticles/2011/11/22/meditation-can-turn-off-regions-of-the-brain

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