STRONG TIME: meditation would develop the brain

Publication date:

Tuesday, November 16th, 2004

Author: Marie-Christine Petit Pierre

They are eight, eight followers Buddhists who add up each 10 000 to 50 000 hours of meditation, "athletes" in their discipline. They came from Asia or from Europe to Madison, in Wisconsin, to participate in a study on the effects of the meditation on the brain. The results published today in the Reports of the Academy of the sciences (PNAS) in the United States, justify amply the movement. The researchers of the University of Madison showed, for the first time, that the meditation could lead durable intellectual modifications in the experimented followers.

To put in evidence this process, the team of Madison chose a simple method. Let be the electro-encephalogram which allows quantifying the intellectual electric activity by means of electrodes placed on the skull of the subject. The analysis of the results showed that the experimented fellows manage to produce, during their practice, fast oscillations in the frequencies gamma. This activity is widely more important than in the witness group, ten young students were formed during a week in the art of the meditation. These gamma waves reflect the coherence of the intellectual activity and are discovered during states of steady attention or generally during the awareness.

« Let us imagine the brain as a jazz band where every musician plays a different instrument to end in a coherent piece », proposes Antoine Lutz, doctor in neurosciences, responsible for the research « The various regions of the brain are specialized in certain functions as the feelings, the taste, the smell, the memory... They have to synchronize between them, as the musicians of jazz do when they improvise. The presence of the gamma waves reflects the coordination through the brain of these various modules. »

The exceptional increase of the rhythms gamma in the frontal cerebral cortex, observed in the experimented practitioners, indicates that these regions play an important role in the generation of this state.

« It is not surprising, because these regions underlie complex mental functions, as the abstract thought, the capacity of learning but also the voluntary actions », comments Antoine Lutz. But it is not only located in the concerned zone, the study shows an activation of a big number of regions in particular the parietal areas, so suggesting a long distance synchronization between these zones. The meditation would thus generate a strong coordination between several regions of the brain.

« We think that the degree of synchronization reflects the training of the subjects, says Antoine Lutz. This coherence of the intellectual activity rests probably on a reorganization of the intellectual connections. Besides, the correlation between the high rate of the waves gamma before the meditation for the practitioners and the number of hours of practice suggests a long-term effect on the brain. We also noticed an increase of the gamma waves after the meditation. It implies a short-term impact on the intellectual dynamics. »

It would thus be about a reorganization of the brain due to the mental training.

Practitioners used, for this part of the study, a technique called universal condolence and about unconditional love. The researchers will also use the outputs of nuclear magnetic echo (IRMF) allowing to better localize anatomically the stimulated regions. A fascinating scientific serial is thus going to continue in the course of their analysis.

These first results already open the perspectives of application in the domains of the deficit of attention, concern and why not in neuronal ageing. « In the United States the meditation is daily used in 200 hospitals for the management of the stress. For example in the terminal phases of the cancer », recalls Antoine Lutz.

Other studies on the meditation, notably that led by the dojo zen of Zurich and steered by Christoph Michel, responsible for the Research laboratory of the service of neurology at the university Hospital of Geneva, showed an increase of the waves with low frequency, alpha and theta, indicating rather a state of relaxation.

« We did not analyze the gamma waves because they are difficult to record in surface. It is very interesting to notice the durability of the change inferred by the meditation. It is the first one. A very beautiful study which I would have liked to do well », comments sportily Christoph Michel. It is now a question of knowing if the changes are really owed to the meditation and not to the particular predisposition of the monks. « It implies a study on the duration, adds Christoph Michel. It would also be necessary to see if practitioners do it really better in practice, if they have more ease to resolve a problem. »

Measuring instruments

The Time

The intellectual activity, which is recorded in hertz (Hz) varies considerably. The waves delta (0,5 to 4 Hz) correspond to the deep sleep without dream; the waves theta (from 4 to 7 Hz) in the deep relaxation; the waves alpha (from 8 to 13 Hz) in the light relaxation or in the quiet awakening; the waves beta (14 Hz and more) in the current activities as well as, curiously, in the periods of sleep with dream. The waves gamma (over 30-35) would testify, them, of an exceptional activation of neurons, such as we face during the process of creation and resolution of a problem.

« The condolence generates a state of total availability, what allows a passage the action »

Marie-Christine Petit Pierre

Interview of the co-author of the study, the doctor in cellular biology and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard.

Sitting in front of its laptop, draped in the traditional dress of the Tibetan, saffron, yellow and Bordeaux, Matthieu Ricard is at the same time the image of the modernity and the tradition, of the science and the spirituality. We are in the lounge of a villa of The Coast where he friendly stopped on the occasion of a tour with monk dancers of the Tibet, indeed far from the convent of Shétchen, in Nepal, where he became established more than thirty years ago. Doctor in cellular biology, he abandoned his scientific career to dedicate itself to the Tibetan Buddhism. That did not prevent him from writing several works, among which The monk and the philosopher,  a dialogue with his father the known journalist Jean-François Revel, and The infinity in the palm of the hand, an interview with the astrophysicist Trihn Xuan Thuan. He is also the translator of the Dalai Lama and his photographer. Today the monk returns to the science as the co-author of the study on the effects of the consideration on the production of gamma waves by the brain.

The Time: how did you come to participate in this study?

Matthieu Ricard: the Dalai Lama is an extremely curious mind. He is interested in sciences a lot. We wanted to organize meetings with His Holiness and scientists of very high level, what ended in the foundation of "Mind and Life Institute". At the beginning very discreet, these meetings alway stook more importance.We decided to make this research, of which I became one of the coordinators. I collaborated in the elaboration of the scientific protocols, from the point of view of the meditating, to identify and define the various types of consideration which were since studied in laboratory. I also served as guinea pig to see if it was worth moving contemplative monks of the Tibet to the United States. And I was so able to contribute to refine the approach between the scientists and the practitioners.

- Did you use a particular type of meditation?

- We used some but mainly the one of the universal condolence. It does not exercise on a precise subject, what allows avoiding the stimulation of the memory and the imagination. The results of the study show a strong increase of the intellectual activity in the regions of the brain connected to the positive feelings and a bigger availability in action. Another still not published study using the prints by functional nuclear magnetic echo ( IRMF) shows the stimulation of the left prefrontal lobe which also implies the active zone in the economic planning of the movements. The condolence generates a state of total availability, all the barriers fall, what allows a passage to action. It is at least our interpretation of practitioners.

- It is real champions of the meditation who participated in the study. Does it not distort the results?

- Our idea was to show that the meditation had a durable effect on the brain. And the differences between the intellectual activity of the novices and the experimented monks showed that the main factor was the mental training. But it will be necessary to make a longitudinal study, to show how the brains of those who meditate evolve on the duration. This study proved that a person could modify durably its intellectual plasticity. Is it due to an increase of the existing connections or to the constitution of neurons? We do not know it. What we can say, it is that the brain modifies itself, thanks to an internal and voluntary enrichment.

- What do you get from this experiment?

- For the contemplative, what counts is the transformation. This discovery does not change his practice. But the demonstration is extremely interesting for the passionate person in sciences that I am. And it shows that Buddhism and sciences are not incompatible, as believed for a long time by the Chinese communists for whom the Tibetans are savages. It is about a contemplative science and not about a dogma. It is an investigation of the mental processes. And if the theory of the Buddhist perception turned out to be scientifically false, it would not be a problem for the Dalai Lama.

- What is your goal in making this demonstration?

- The Buddhists do not make proselytism. The main thing for us, it is to show the changes that the meditation can bring. And to give to society this technique which can be used without any religious objective. There is for example a current experiment in California with hyperactive children and with 150 professors who will study their changes after three months of meditation. We could intend to add "the emotional balance" to the schools programs by using the meditation.