Meditation helps psychiatric disorders, mind-wandering

According to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers, experienced meditators seem to be able to switch off areas of the brain associated with psychiatric disorders like autism and schizophrenia. “Meditation has been shown to help in a variety of health problems, such as helping people quit smoking, cope with cancer, and even prevent psoriasis,” said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Meditation, when done properly, can help all kinds of people stay focused on the moment. For the study the Tale team put experienced and novice meditators under the scrutiny of functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. Experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which is implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease. A decrease was seen in that area no matter what type of meditation was being done.

The fMRI scans also showed that when the default mode network was active, other brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control were co-active – but only with the experienced meditators. The may be part of the discipline meditators have in suppressing the “me” thoughts. That type of “mind-wandering” is indicated in many mental illnesses.

“Meditation’s ability to help people stay in the moment has been part of philosophical and contemplative practices for thousands of years,” Brewer said. “Conversely, the hallmarks of many forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one’s own thoughts, a condition meditation seems to affect. This gives us some nice cues as to the neural mechanisms of how it might be working clinically.”

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, MedicalNewsToday

photo by John Nyboer