Altering your brain

[Mish]

I did some reading on prefrontal cortex (as recommended by GrkScorp) and found this article

Thoughts?


Davidson's research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains.

In the traditional view, the brain becomes frozen with the onset of adulthood, after which few new connections form. In the past 20 years, though, scientists have discovered that intensive training can make a difference. For instance, the portion of the brain that corresponds to a string musician's fingering hand grows larger than the part that governs the bow hand - even in musicians who start playing as adults. Davidson's work suggested this potential might extend to emotional centers.

But Davidson saw something more. The monks had responded to the request to meditate on compassion by generating remarkable brain waves. Perhaps these signals indicated that the meditators had attained an intensely compassionate state of mind. If so, then maybe compassion could be exercised like a muscle; with the right training, people could bulk up their empathy. And if meditation could enhance the brain's ability to produce "attention and affective processes" - emotions, in the technical language of Davidson's study - it might also be used to modify maladaptive emotional responses like depression.

The rest of the article
[url]http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/dalai.html[/url]

[IndiReloaded]

Tosh, if adult brains became 'frozen' we wouldn't be able to learn anything new.

Meditation is a form of training, just like going to the gym for your muscles. I wasn't surprised at the data, but I did think it a bit weird that the DL spoke at the Neuroscience meeting. That's one of the biggest science conferences in the world, FYI.

I do think its odd that he spoke at the meeting, he's not a scientist. But the DL definitely has a vested interest in making his religion look scientific. And his connection w/this group below (who supported this work) is also suspect.

I've said before, its not buddhist philosophy I object to, but the organized religion part.

[url]http://www.mindandlife.org/[/url]

[anachronistic]

I find neuroscience very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[Henry123]

The brain freezing could explain why its hard for adults to learn new languages.
I'm always amaze about those people who can speak numerous languages.

I even find more amazing are people with photographic memory, idiot savants, yogis who can slowly down their breathing rate and hold there breaths for long periods of time. Its quite amazing what the brain can do.

[Gigabitch]

I find it amazing that some LF posters can't seem to learn that their SO is a scumbag, despite tons of evidence and good advice from all of us.

[Mish]

I find it amazing that some LF posters can't seem to learn that their SO is a scumbag, despite tons of evidence and good advice from all of us.

Everyone is a scumbag, you just have to know to what extent and whether that extent is grounds for break up.

Some people just have a poor extent meter.

[DoesntMatter]

Something even more interesting is gene silencing via RNAi, where a strand of RNA complimentary to a specific mRNA is introduced into an embryonic cell and via a mechanism that destroys it, no protein is translated. Why does this make me think of adjusting the way your brain works?

Some wiseguy did this on a sample of mice and the gene that was silenced was responsible for producing NMDA receptors, which are necessary components of learning and memory. So the mice that grew out of said embryos couldn't remember shit! I got a good laugh out of it