More Scientific evidence too support benifts of meditation.

B5C

"The benefits of meditation have received newfound evidence from neuroscience in the last five years, as researchers are finding real physiological changes due to a sort of formally practiced introspection.

Recently scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital had 16 participants take an 8-week mindfulness meditation program. This sort of meditation focuses on non-judgmental awareness of sensations and feelings. Subjects practiced for about 30 minutes a day.

Brain images were taken of each subject before and after the training. Scientists found increases in grey-matter density in the hippocampus—an area responsible for learning and memory. And they saw decreased density in the amygdala—which is responsible for our anxiety and stress responses.

One area that did not change is the insula, which is associated with self-awareness. The researchers speculate that longer-term meditation might be necessary to affect that area.

All this reminds us of two things: 1) The brain is much more plastic than scientists thought even just a decade ago and 2) the way we feel—calm or anxious—can be correlated with real structural indicators in our brains."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=mediation-correlated-with-structura-11-01-22

The pod cast gets more detailed.

Whoknows

Cool!

compassionate_warrior

Cool!

Ditto!

fivebells

These studies always involve too few participants for it to be plausible that the results were statistically significant after taking multiple sampling (multiple studies) into account. It suggests that the positive results are simply a matter of confirmation bias, and we are only seeing the cases where the p-value fell below the magic 5% threshold.

It's particularly troubling that the Scientific American report has no link to the actual paper, or any indication of where it was published. It makes meaningful evaluation of the study impossible.

Whoknows

Spoil sport

Fivebells, sometimes I am amazed that Scientific American has "Scientific" in its name. I've seen some pretty dodgy stuff printed by the "Science Journalists". Of course I'm just using name calling which isn't fair. But still, I believe journalism has fallen a long way.

Cheers, WK

buddhajunkie

^^^
But how do you know the number of studies similar studies that have not been published?

Also, p-value already takes into account the number of observations.

Finally, even if there is publication bias, think of all the other studies that have probably attempted to increase grey matter in certain regions by other techniques/interventions that have failed, i.e. even publication bias can't save them.


While not certain, I think it's a good bet that meditation does alter the brain in positive ways.


Also, here's the website and the (likely) article reference:

http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~lazar/publications.html

Britta K. Hölzel, James Carmody, Mark Vangela, Christina Congletona, Sita M. Yerramsettia, Tim Gard, and Sara W. Lazar. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Res, 2010.

B5C

These studies always involve too few participants for it to be plausible that the results were statistically significant after taking multiple sampling (multiple studies) into account. It suggests that the positive results are simply a matter of confirmation bias, and we are only seeing the cases where the p-value fell below the magic 5% threshold.

It's particularly troubling that the Scientific American report has no link to the actual paper, or any indication of where it was published. It makes meaningful evaluation of the study impossible.

It's best to have a small group for studies because it makes it easier for repeat studies for other groups too see if others can test the idea.

Also size almost does not matter as long they followed the Scientific method.

dorje

Actually, size does matter. The bigger the number of participants, the smaller the margin of error. Simply put, a bigger number of test subjects is needed to get a more homogeneous control.

buddhajunkie

Yes, but it should be noted that it is possible to achieve a very high level of statistical significance even with a very small sample.

Suppose I have a coin that that lands "Heads" 16 times in a row. You can safely conclude that that coin is rigged since the probability of that happening by pure chance is sufficiently small, (1/2)^16.

I agree, however, that a larger, more diverse sample pool will allow results to be extrapolated to more population groups.


Hopefully this is a study that will lead to bigger studies as well as greater interest in meditation.

fivebells

...size almost does not matter as long they followed the Scientific method.

I tell that to my girlfriend all the time, but she just tells me to get the damn test tubes out of the bedroom.

B5C

...size almost does not matter as long they followed the Scientific method.

I tell that to my girlfriend all the time, but she just tells me to get the damn test tubes out of the bedroom.

The post of the day!