The Wall Street Journal had a book excerpt two days ago on how thinking can change the brain. It was a self-evident truth to the Dalai Lama, but an impossibility, according to scientists. The excerpts were comprised of vignettes from the book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain,: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Power to Transform Ourselves
It’s classic, really. The Dalai Lama was observing a brain operation and asked the surgeons a question: “Can the mind shape brain matter?” I think he knew the answer. It was as if Einstein was asking a scientist (before he gave the world E=MC2) if time stands still at the speed of light.
And as was expected, the answer was no. “One brain surgeon hardly paused. ‘Physical states give rise to mental states,’ he asserted. ‘downward causation from the mental to the physical is not possible.’ The Dalai Lama let the matter drop. This wasn’t the first time a man of science had dismissed the possibility that the mind can change the brain.”
I wonder what the response would be to the question: Does consciousness create the brain?
Is this a case of science not seeing the forest because of the trees? Isn’t it a fact that a stress producing thought that constricts blood vessels and restricts blood flow can cause an effect on the brain? And then there is the fact that neuroscientist Helen Mayberg discovered in 2002 that placebos work the same way on the brains of depressed people at antidepressants do-increasing activity in the frontal cortex (the area that processes higher thought) and decreasing activity in the limbic regions ( the area specializing in emotions.)
In the 1990s scientists had discovered a phenomenon of the brain called Neuroplasticity. “For instance, certain synthesized speech can alter the auditory cortex of dyslexic kids in a way that lets their brains hear previously garbled syllables; intensely practiced movements can alter the motor cortex of stroke patients and allow them to move once paralyzed arms or legs.”
But the Dalai Lama was asking something a little more subtle: The Dalai Lama was asking how thinking can change the brain, if a thought could rewire the brain. I like how Sharon Begley puts it in her book: “To the mandarins of neuroscience, the very idea seemed as likely as the wings of a butterfly leaving a dent on an armored tank.”
But the Dalai Lama would have the last word. The proof would come at the lab of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. The Dalai Lama lent to science eight Buddhist adepts who joined 10 volunteers who had had a crash course in a type of meditation called non-referential compassion. “In this state, the meditator focuses on unlimited compassion and loving kindness toward all living beings.”
Demonstrating How Thinking Can Change the Brain
All the meditators were wired up to an electroencephalograph that would record their brain waves. After they started meditating, one type of brain wave grew exceedingly strong: gamma waves. “These, scientist believe, are a signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung circuits…Gamma waves appear when the brain brings together different features of an object, such as look, feel, sound and other attributes that lead the brain to its aha moment of, yup, that’s an armadillo.”
But something unexpected by mainstream brain science occurred. In between meditations, the gamma signal in the adept meditators, that had continued to rise throughout the meditations, didn’t diminish. It turned out that the more hours of meditation training that a monk had, the more enduring the gamma brain signal was. Brain change was happening.
What is significant, besides the proof that thoughts can alter the brain, is what part of the brain became active during the meditation session. “The brains of all the subjects showed activity in regions that monitor one’s emotions, plan movements, and generate positive feelings such as happiness. Regions that keep track of what is self and what is other became quieter, as if during compassion meditation the subjects opened their minds and hearts to others.”
Perhaps the more far-reaching experiment would prove not so much how thinking can change the brain but how it can change the world.
When science gets to the point of realizing that consciousness is the foundation of all matter, as some quantum physicists have hinted at and that mystics have proclaimed for thousands of years, then the world will have a better understanding of oneness. Holistic living will become the norm, rather than the exception. How thinking can change the brain will be known as a self-evident truth.
For further reading in the area oif how thinking can change the brain, you might check out Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness
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