Meditation

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Experienced Meditators Exhibit Higher Brain Waves. A Universiy of

Wisconsin research team has found that long-term meditators show

markedly different patterns of brain waves compared to a group with

no previous meditative experience.

The researchers, led by psychology and psychiatry professor Richard

Davidson and Waisman Center scientist Antoine Lutz, say the findings

suggest that mental training of the sort involved in meditation

relies on mechanisms in the brain — called neural synchrony —

involved in the global coordination of brain activity and could

induce both short-term and long-term changes in the brain.

 

The findings appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences.

 

The study focused on a comparison of brain-oscillation patterns,

reflecting neural synchrony, between a group of eight long-term

Buddhist practitioners of traditional Tibetan meditation and a group

of 10 healthy student volunteers who had no experience in meditation

but who were taught meditation before the experiment.

 

Neural synchrony is a mechanism by which groups of neurons,

oscillating at different frequencies, fire in phase. The transient

coordination of these neural circuits across the brain is comparable

to the coordination of jazz musicians who are playing and improvising

together.

 

The team focused on the " gamma-band " rhythms, a range of fast-

frequency oscillations that is associated with higher mental activity

such as attention, learning and conscious perception.

 

The subjects in the study were asked to meditate several times,

alternating with a resting state. The type of meditation each group

pursued involves the voluntary generation of compassion and loving

kindness.

 

It does not involve concentration on particular objects, memories or

images, but instead, encourages the practitioner to generate loving

kindness and compassion toward all feeling beings without thinking

about anyone in particular.

 

This type of meditative state is designed to permeate the mind

without focusing on any one person or being.

 

Three findings emerged from the study.

 

First, the research team found that the two groups had significantly

different baseline brain-wave patterns in the resting state before

the meditation began. Compared to the control group, the Buddhist

monks had a higher ratio of " gamma-band " rhythms to slower

oscillatory rhythms.

 

This suggests that long-term meditation practice changes the baseline

state of the brain.

 

Second, the difference between the two groups increased sharply

during meditation and remained higher than the baseline after

meditation.

 

Third, following each period of meditation in the post-meditation

baseline state, the practitioners continued to display high-amplitude

gamma synchrony compared with the controls.

 

These findings indicate that mental training to increase compassion

and loving kindness has profound effects on brain function. The

results further suggest that these qualities are not fixed

characteristics of people, but rather can be improved through

practice and training.

 

 

January 19, 2005