Научные исследования практики Тхеравады

[Ассаджи]

Регулярная практика медитации приводит к росту коры головного мозга в областях, ответственных за тактильное, слуховое, зрительное и внутреннее восприятие (как например, восприятие сердцебиения и дыхания). Кроме того, регулярная практика может замедлять связанное со старением утоньшение передних областей коры головного мозга.

Большинство из областей, в которых было установлен рост, находятся в правом полушарии, играющем ключевую роль в направлении внимания.

Участники исследования занимались медитацией в среднем около 40 минут в день.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-11/yu-maw111005.php
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/051111_medidate.html
http://www.neuroreport.com/pt/re/neuroreport/abstract.00001756-200511280-00005.htm

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Группа американских ученых из Массачусетского госпиталя после опытов с группой людей, регулярно занимающихся буддийской медитацией, пришла к выводу, что эта практика благоприятно влияет на мозг.

Регулярная медитация помогает поддерживать "форму" определенных участков коры головного мозга, фактически - утолщая их. Участники исследования занимаются буддийской медитативной практикой примерно по 40 минут в день, сообщает "Интерфакс" о публикации, появившейся сегодня в газете "Бизнес".

Сканирование мозга последователей буддизма показало, что на участках, связанных со слуховым и визуальным восприятием, так же как и на участках, связанных с контролем сердцебиения и дыхания, кора имеет увеличенную толщину.

Большинство мозговых областей, измененных благодаря медитации, было найдено в правом полушарии, которое является важным для концентрации внимания.

По мнению специалистов, другие формы медитации, например йога, вероятно, оказывают аналогичное воздействие на мозговую структуру, но каждая традиция, скорее всего, будет показывать немного иной образец изменений коры в зависимости от участков, вовлеченных в работу.

http://www.newsru.com/religy/15nov2005/meditation.html

[Лодейников]

Приветствую Ассаджи.

Есть кое-что добавить.

Очень интересные данные основанные на многочисленных психофизиологических исследованиях приводит Дитрих Эберт в "Физиологии йоги", глава "Медитация": http://www.realyoga.ru/Physiology/Library/1261/

советую обратить особое внимание на приложение функциональной схемы стресса к об'яснению медитации (5.4.3. Стресс и релаксация), а также на структурную ассиметрию мозга.

Хотя всё интересно .

Из заключения ( http://www.realyoga.ru/Physiology/Library/1264/ )  :

"В аспекте психологии посредством йоги тренируются те качества, которые на место лихорадочной, лишенной сосредоточенности и зависимой от множества внешних обстоятельств личности, ставят личность более устойчивую, которая владеет сосредоточением, самоконтролем и не зависит от внешних обстоятельств. В то время как наша культура требует от человека преимущественно активной жизни и допускает пренебрежение жизнью созерцательной, йога обучает последней, что могло бы привести к уравновешенному соотношению обеих. Посредством медитации происходит «очищение восприятия» (см.5.4.), «деавтоматизация сознания» и, тем самым, также «очищение мышления». Присутствие в настоящем открывает возможности разрушения автоматизированного мышления, ориентированного на привычность и удобство, и делает человека более открытым к восприятию актуальных состояний и процессов, что, в частности, является предпосылкой для «более разумной регуляции обмена веществ с природой» (Маркс).
С медицинской точки зрения терапевтическая ценность свойственна многим элементам йогической практики. В целом ряде случаев психосоматических заболеваний особенно рекомендуется обращение к йоготерапии. Необходимо систематическое изучение этих взаимосвязей и их клиническое обоснование, что подверждается весьма плодотворным опытом индийских институтов йоги."

_____

Чётко перечисленные Health Benefits of Yoga: http://www.iayt.org/site/publications/articles/hlthbenefits.php
на практическом медицинском материале.

Psychological Benefits

• Somatic and kinesthetic awareness increase
• Mood improves and subjective well-being increases
• Self-acceptance and self-actualization increase
• Social adjustment increases
• Anxiety and depression decrease
• Hostility decreases

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Mindfulness and healing, talk by Jon Kabat-Zinn



ABSTRACT

Jon will describe the revolution in medicine that has occurred over the past 30 years that ... all » has integrated the mind back into the body and developed a remarkable range of practices for integrating one's experience, reducing stress, healing the body, coping more effectively with emotions such as anxiety, anger, and depression, and cultivating greater well-being and happiness. His work has been instrumental in bringing Buddhist meditative practices, as he likes to say, "without the Buddhism" to full acceptance within the mainstream of medicine, psychology, and health care, and has shown them to be effective in people suffering from a wide range of medical disorders and diseases who have not been entirely helped by more traditional approaches. He will present data from several studies showing the effects of simple mindfulness practices on the brain and the immune system in employees in a high-stress work environment, and on rates of healing in medical patients. He will also speak about the growing conversation at the highest levels between science and ancient contemplative traditions, catalyzed in part by the Dalai Lama's interest in science, and how it is leading to new ways of exploring and understanding the nature of human experience and our potential to lead satisfying, happy, and healthy lives.

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Медитация улучшает восприимчивость:

http://www.livescience.com/health/070507_mental_training.html
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138

[Pavel]

Подобные исследования, видимо получаут сейчас болшее признание. Например, на сайте Национально Института Здравоохранения США (NIH) я недавно нашел объявление о приеме грантов на тему Research on Mind-Body Interactions and Health
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-07-046.html

The Public Health Service has documented that many of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the U.S. are attributable to social, behavioral, and lifestyle factors (e.g., tobacco use, lack of exercise, poor diet, and drug and alcohol abuse). Numerous studies have also documented that psychological stress is linked to a variety of health outcomes, and researchers and public health officials are becoming increasingly interested in understanding the nature of this relationship. Research has shown, for example, that psychological stress can contribute to increased heart disease, decreased immune system functioning, and premature aging. Other research has demonstrated that cognitions (attitudes, beliefs values), social support, prayer, and meditation can reduce psychological stress and contribute to positive health outcomes. Consequently, over the past decade the National Institutes of Health have increased efforts to encourage and support health and behavior research (e.g., Innovative Approaches to Disease Prevention through Behavior Change, NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, October 24, 1997; Maintenance of Behavioral Change, NIH Guide to Grants and Contracts, January 15, 2003). Mind-body research is viewed as one component of health and behavior research. In 1999, using funds especially appropriated by Congress to the OBSSR, the NIH issued a Request for Applications (RFA) for Centers for Mind-Body Interactions and Health (OD-99-005) and subsequently awarded five P50 Center Grants (http://obssr.od.nih.gov/Content/Research/Request_for_Applications_(RFAs)/mbpage.htm). On January 9 2003, NIH issued two related RFAs on Mind-Body Interactions and Health: Research Infrastructure Program (OB-03-004; see http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OB-03-004.html) and Mind-Body Interactions and Health: Exploratory/developmental Research Program (OB-03-005; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OB-03-005.html). NIH issued a RFA on July 14, 2003 for research project grants (OD-03-008; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-03-008.html). The current program announcement is based upon the July 2003 RFA.

[Ассаджи]

Медитация улучшает внимание: доказано экспериментально

Медитация включает определенную практику тренировки внимания. Этим заинтересовались ученые, поставив перед собой задачу изучить свойства квантов внимания. Кванты внимания ограничиваются длительностью примерно в полсекунды: это предел распознавания двух последовательных стимулов. Феномен отсутствия восприятия в этот промежуток времени называется миганием внимания (attentional blink). Оказалось, что медитация способна сильно снизить это явление. Предполагается, что практика медитации помогает человеку эффективно перераспределять нейрофизиологические ресурсы, идущие на формирование кратковременной памяти.

http://elementy.ru/news/430514

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The Science of Mindfulness Meditation
June 22nd, 2007

A fascinating new study by UCLA researchers combines modern neuroscience with ancient Buddhist teachings.

The scientists believe they have discovered the first neural evidence for why "mindfulness" — the ability to live in the present moment, without distraction — seems to produce a variety of health benefits.

When people see a photograph of an angry or fearful face, they have increased activity in a region of the brain called the amygdala, which serves as an alarm to activate a cascade of biological systems to protect the body in times of danger. Scientists see a robust amygdala response even when they show such emotional photographs subliminally, so fast a person can't even see them.

But does seeing an angry face and simply calling it an angry face change our brain response" The answer is yes, according to Matthew D. Lieberman, UCLA associate professor of psychology and a founder of social cognitive neuroscience.

"When you attach the word 'angry,' you see a decreased response in the amygdala," said Lieberman, lead author of the study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science.

The study showed that while the amygdala was less active when an individual labeled the feeling, another region of the brain was more active: the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. This region is located behind the forehead and eyes and has been associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences.

It has also been implicated in inhibiting behavior and processing emotions, but exactly what it contributes has not been known.

"What we're suggesting is when you start thinking in words about your emotions —labeling emotions — that might be part of what the right ventrolateral region is responsible for," Lieberman said.

http://www.international.ucla.edu/buddhist/article.asp?parentid=72539

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Meditation May Sharpen Attention Skills
Study Shows Meditation Appears To Train The Brain To Pay Closer Attention


   
May 9, 2007
Fast Fact

The researchers say the findings show that meditation served as mental training that improved control over attention.
   
Meditation may train the brain to pay close attention, a new study shows.

The study comes from researchers including Richard Davidson, PhD, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

They studied 17 people who were experienced in meditation and 23 people of similar backgrounds who were novices in meditation.

For three months, the experienced meditation practitioners attended an intensive meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. During the retreat, they practiced Vipassana meditation for 10-12 hours daily.

"In this common style of meditation, one starts by focusing or stabilizing concentration on an object such as the breath," Davidson's team writes. "Then one broadens one's focus, cultivating a nonreactive form of sensory awareness or 'bare' attention," the researchers continue. "This form of attention is nonreactive in the sense that ideally one does not become caught up in judgments and affective [mood] responses about sensory or mental stimuli."

For comparison, the 23 meditation novices attended one hour of meditation training and were asked to meditate for 20 minutes daily for one week.

At the end of their meditation training, the researchers tested participants' attention skills.

In the attention test, participants watched a series of letters shown one by one on a computer screen. Each letter was displayed for less than a second.

Every now and then, a letter was followed by a number, instead of another letter. Participants were asked to name the numbers, which (like the letters) only appeared for a split second.

The researchers didn't ask participants to meditate during the tests.

Compared with the meditation novices, participants who had attended the three-month intensive meditation retreat were better at noticing the numbers mixed into the string of letters. The researchers say the findings show that meditation served as mental training that improved control over attention.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/09/health/webmd/main2782223.shtml

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Eastern Technique for Eating Disorders
By: Psych Central News Editor
    on Friday, Jan, 12, 2007

Reviewed by: John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
    on Friday, Jan, 12, 2007

"Women who have been through the program report less dissatisfaction with their bodies, increased self-esteem and improved personal relationships," Ms Morgan said.

"They learn that thoughts and emotions don't have any power over us as they are just passing phenomena and aren't permanent."

Mindfulness has already been shown to be effective as a treatment for anxiety and depression, substance abuse, and the stress associated with physical conditions such as trauma, chronic pain or cancer.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/01/12/eastern-technique-for-eating-disorders/

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Meditate...to Concentrate: Penn Researchers Demonstrate Improved Attention With Mindfulness Training
May 09, 2007

PHILADELPHIA -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that practicing even small doses of daily meditation may improve focus and performance.

Meditation, according to Penn neuroscientist Amishi Jha and Michael Baime, director of Penn's Stress Management Program, is an active and effortful process that literally changes the way the brain works.  Their study is the first to examine how meditation may modify the three subcomponents of attention, including the ability to prioritize and manage tasks and goals, the ability to voluntarily focus on specific information and the ability to stay alert to the environment.

In the Penn study, subjects were split into two categories.  Those new to meditation, or "mindfulness training," took part in an eight-week course that included up to 30 minutes of daily meditation.  The second group was more experienced with meditation and attended an intensive full-time, one-month retreat.

Researchers found that even for those new to the practice, meditation enhanced performance and the ability to focus attention.  Performance-based measures of cognitive function demonstrated improvements in a matter of weeks.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1155

[Yuriy]

Статья (май 2007) по исследованию влияния 3-месячной практики випассаны на внимание (эти результаты уже упоминались выше)

Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources
Heleen A. Slagter, Antoine Lutz, Lawrence L. Greischar, Andrew D. Francis, Sander Nieuwenhuis, James M. Davis, Richard J. Davidson
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138&ct=1

Финансирование исследования:
This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (P50-MH069315–03 to RJD), the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (U01AT002114-01A1 to AL), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (SN), and gifts from Bryant Wangard, Keith and Arlene Bronstein, and the John W. Kluge Foundation (to RJD).

[Yuriy]

Новая работа по изучению влияния техники внимательности на функциональное состояние мозга практиков.

Обнаружено, что у новичков во время медитации активны те области мозга, которые определяют относится ли поступившая информация к субъекту и решаема ли проблема. В отличие от этого у опытных медитирующих активность сдвигается в зоны, обеспечивающие гомеостатическую информацию о теле и текущем состоянии. Хотя результаты одного исследования не являются окончательными, тем не менее они позволяют предположить, что практика техники внимательности может открыть доступ к другой нейронной модальности, которая, вероятно, не столь основана на пропозиционально/аналитической обработке информации.

Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference
Norman A. S. Farb,1 Zindel V. Segal,1,2 Helen Mayberg,3 Jim Bean,4 Deborah McKeon,4 Zainab Fatima,5 and Adam K. Anderson1,5

1Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada, 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, 4Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic, St. Joseph's Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6R 1B5, and 5Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1

It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits ('narrative' focus, NF) or momentary experience ('experiential' focus, EF) in both novice participants and those having attended an 8 week course in mindfulness meditation, a program that trains individuals to develop focused attention on the present. In novices, EF yielded focal reductions in self-referential cortical midline regions (medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC) associated with NF. In trained participants, EF resulted in more marked and pervasive reductions in the mPFC, and increased engagement of a right lateralised network, comprising the lateral PFC and viscerosomatic areas such as the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and inferior parietal lobule. Functional connectivity analyses further demonstrated a strong coupling between the right insula and the mPFC in
novices that was uncoupled in the mindfulness group. These results suggest a fundamental neural dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness that are habitually integrated but can be dissociated through attentional training: the self across time and in the present

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published August 13, 2007

Оригинал статьи прикреплен к соответствующему сообщению от 4.09.07 в MLRN, интересующиеся деталями обратитесь ко мне по личке.

[Yuriy]

b] Наука и буддизм.
Раздел: человеческий опыт.
Направление:  медицина.
Тема: техника внимательности и рак[/b]

Сайт L.Carlson (PhD, онкоцентр университета Калгари, Канада)
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~lcarlso/

В разделе сайта "Publications - by area of interest" есть серия статей автора, посвященных исследованию влияния техники внимательности на состояние раковых больных. В настоящее время (осень 2007) проводятся сравнительные исследования эффективности техники внимательности и других техник.

В разделе "Dr. Linda Carlson - photos - flower photos" (прямую ссылку дать невозможно) альбом фотографий цветов, тот который у меня открылся первым, растет и у нас в полях, похож на василек.

Библиография работ по теме, представленная на госресурсе института здоровья США:
http://obssr.od.nih.gov/HillContent/Templates/OBSSRSub.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fContent%2fLectures%2band%2bSeminars%2fCarlson_biblio%2ehtm&NRNODEGUID=%7b2F40F9B9-1E35-4C86-9C2E-773AB8BB1FE4%7d&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest

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Статьи на PsychCentral со словом "mindfulness":

http://psychcentral.com/news/index.php?Match=1&s=mindfulness

[Ассаджи]

Фильмы о работе Джона Кабат-Цина:

http://www.boeddhistischeomroep.nl/uitzending.aspx?lIntEntityId=74&lIntType=0&lIntYear=2003
http://www.boeddhistischeomroep.nl/uitzending.aspx?lIntEntityId=177&lIntType=0&lIntYear=2006
http://www.boeddhistischeomroep.nl/uitzending.aspx?lIntEntityId=52&lIntType=0&lIntYear=2002

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Meditation: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives
By Deane H. Shapiro, Roger N. Walsh

http://books.google.com/books?id=w9sv49ZHqWUC&printsec=frontcover

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Psychological State Changes in Meditation
by James Kempf

http://www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Misc/psybudd1.html

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Lotus Therapy
By BENEDICT CAREY

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/research/27budd.html?ex=1369627200&en=243cf577038c27b1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

[Ассаджи]

Philippe R. Goldin
Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation


http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~pgoldin/Mindfulness.html

http://www.actmindfully.com.au
http://www.contextualpsychology.org
http://www.thehappinesstrap.com