reposted from NYT - thanks Janice

 

How Meditation May Change the Brain

By 

SINDYA N. BHANOO

 JANUARY 28, 2011 10:29 AMJanuary 28, 2011 10:29 am

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From our archives.

Over the December holidays, my husband went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not my idea of fun, but he came back rejuvenated and energetic.

He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening, until the end of March. He’s running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life.

I’ll admit I’m a skeptic.

But now, scientists say that meditators like my husband may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

But how exactly did these study volunteers, all seeking stress reduction in their lives but new to the practice, meditate? So many people talk about meditating these days. Within four miles of our Bay Area home, there are at least six centers that offer some type of meditation class, and I often hear phrases like, “So how was your sit today?”

Britta Hölzel, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead author, said the participants practiced mindfulness meditation, a form of meditation that was introduced in the United States in the late 1970s. It traces its roots to the same ancient Buddhist techniques that my husband follows.

“The main idea is to use different objects to focus one’s attention, and it could be a focus on sensations of breathing, or emotions or thoughts, or observing any type of body sensations,” she said. “But it’s about bringing the mind back to the here and now, as opposed to letting the mind drift.”

Generally the meditators are seated upright on a chair or the floor and in silence, although sometimes there might be a guide leading a session, Dr. Hölzel said.

Of course, it’s important to remember that the human brain is complicated. Understanding what the increased density of gray matter really means is still, well, a gray area.

“The field is very, very young, and we don’t really know enough about it yet,” Dr. Hölzel said. “I would say these are still quite preliminary findings. We see that there is something there, but we have to replicate these findings and find out what they really mean.”

It has been hard to pinpoint the benefits of meditation, but a 2009 study suggests that meditation may reduce blood pressure in patients with coronary heart disease. And a 2007 study found that meditators have longer attention spans.

Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, although this new study is the first to document changes in gray matter over time through meditation.

Ultimately, Dr. Hölzel said she and her colleagues would like to demonstrate how meditation results in definitive improvements in people’s lives.

“A lot of studies find that it increases well-being, improves quality of life, but it’s always hard to determine how you can objectively test that,” she said. “Relatively little is known about the brain and the psychological mechanisms about how this is being done.”

In a 2008 study published in the journal PloS One, researchers found that when meditators heard the sounds of people suffering, they had stronger activation levels in their temporal parietal junctures, a part of the brain tied to empathy, than people who did not meditate.

“They may be more willing to help when someone suffers, and act more compassionately,” Dr. Hölzel said.

Further study is needed, but that bodes well for me.

For now, I’m more than happy to support my husband’s little experiment, despite the fact that he now rises at 5 a.m. and is exhausted by 10 at night.

An empathetic husband who takes out the trash and puts gas in the car because he knows I don’t like to — I’ll take that.

reposted from

Dance and music alter the brain in opposite ways

Written by Tim Newman

Published: Saturday 8 October 2016

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Fascinating research, published in the journal NeuroImage, finds distinct changes in sensory and motor pathways in the brains of dancers and musicians. However, the changes in white matter are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Music and dance go hand in hand, but neurological differences are stark.

In the majority of earth's most ancient cultures, dancing and music is wonderfully prevalent.

This ubiquitous desire to make music and move along to it has been carried through into modern culture.

Although some children may dread their trumpet tutorial and others would rather play their Xbox than attend ballet lessons, a new study shows that our parents were right all along.

The recent findings demonstrate that music and dance can make significant neurological changes.

Researchers from the International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research in Montreal, Canada, recently set out to understand what changes within the brain music and dance might produce, and how they compare with each other.

Earlier studies have shown that music training from a young age can make changes to pathways within the brain.

A review published in 2014 concluded that the clearest changes that musical training makes in the brain are to the connections that run between the two hemispheres (the corpus callosum). However, to date, the brains of dancers have received much less scientific attention.

Although both skills involve intense training, dance focuses on integrating visual, auditory, and motor coordination, whereas musicianship primarily concentrates on auditory and motor information.

Imaging artist's brains

Using an advanced imaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging, the team of investigators looked in detail at the white matter structure of dancers, musicians, and individuals with training in neither.

The differences between dancers and musicians were more marked than perhaps might be expected.

"We found that dancers and musicians differed in many white matter regions, including sensory and motor pathways, both at the primary and higher cognitive levels of processing."

Lead author Chiara Giacosa

The pathways that were most affected were bundles of fibers that link the sensory and motor regions of the brain and the fibers of the corpus callosum that run between the hemispheres. In the dancers, these sets of connections were broader (more diffuse); in musicians, these same connections were stronger, but less diffuse, and showed more coherent fiber bundles.

According to Giacosa: "This suggests that dance and music training affect the brain in opposite directions, increasing global connectivity and crossing of fibers in dance training, and strengthening specific pathways in music training."

Why the white matter differences?

The differences observed may be because dancers train their whole body, which has a "broader representation in the neural cortex," encouraging fibers to cross over and increase in size; whereas musicians tend to focus their training on specific body parts such as the fingers or mouth, which will have smaller cortical representations in the brain.

Another interesting result was that dancers and musicians differed more from each other than when compared with the group of untrained control subjects. This could be for a number of reasons, as Giacosa explains: "[...] our samples of dancers and musicians were specifically selected to be pure groups of experts, which makes it easier to differentiate between them." On the other hand, the control group was a more diverse group with a range of interests and life experiences.

These results are not just interesting, they could have ramifications for education and rehabilitation. According to senior author Prof. Virginia Penhune:

"Understanding how dance and music training differently affect brain networks will allow us to selectively use them to enhance their functioning or compensate for difficulties and diseases that involve those specific brain networks."

Dance and music therapy is being investigated for its potential use in the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson's andautism. Prof. Penhune hopes that these findings will spur further research into the use of the arts in the treatment of disease.

Read how singing appears to improve Parkinson's symptoms and quality of life.

Written by Tim Newman