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by Jeff Wilson
The Spirit Science
Many studies have been done to diagnose the physiological changes in humans during meditation. None have been this comprehensive or had detailed information about a before and after. Sara Lazar, senior author at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, has done studies on meditation before. They found that first time practitioner’s cerebral cortex’s thickened in the areas associated with attention and emotional integration. Those studies were not sufficient to say the changes were from meditations.
“This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing,” Lazar reports.
This study took sixteen participants with no serious history of regimented or consistent meditative practice. The participants answered questionnaires and submitted to have magnetic resonance images (MRI) taken of their brains two weeks before and after they took part in a meditation program. The University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness accepted the participants in an eight week long Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program.
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