By Nathan Seppa Any speculation drawing an ongoing link between flu vaccination and the risk of a rare, paralyzing neuromuscular disorder has been dashed by a huge study. An analysis of side effects recorded among nearly 90 million people in China who were vaccinated during the 2009–2010 flu season found that only 11 people subsequently were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rate no greater than what normally appears in the population. The study appears online February 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine. In 1976, a strain of swine flu showed up in the United States, prompting the manufacture and delivery more than 40 million doses of vaccine against it. The epidemic ultimately never materialized, but studies noted that hundreds of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome were reported after the vaccination campaign. The vaccine was withdrawn. In 2003, an Institute of Medicine review found that the evidence pointed to an association between the 1976 swine flu vaccine and the syndrome. IOM found no clear evidence of such a link with subsequent flu vaccines, but some concerns have lingered vis-à-vis flu vaccination. These fears intensified in 2009 when another swine flu emerged, this time known as the H1N1 flu, and a vaccine was made for it. After mass vaccinations, physician Yu Wang and colleagues at the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing collected data on all adverse effects reported by the 89.6 million people in China who received the flu vaccine in 2009 and 2010. The researchers found an exceptionally low rate of Guillain-Barré syndrome among those who had been vaccinated — less than the background rate in the population. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 14949 - Posted: 02.03.2011

Scientists have identified five new genes linked to Parkinson's disease in a large genetic analysis of the illness, according to a new study. After reviewing nearly 8 million possible genetic mutations, researchers pinpointed five genes connected to Parkinson's disease. Previously, six other genes were identified, and experts say there is now increasing proof the degenerative disease is sparked by peoples' genes. The discovery doesn't mean there are any new treatments just yet, but experts are optimistic they are getting closer. "The major common genetic variants for Parkinson's have been found," said Nick Wood, a professor at the Institute of Neurology at University College London, one of the researchers who led the study. "We haven't put together all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but we're not that far off," he said. He predicted a diagnostic test might be ready within a few years. Until recently, scientists hadn't been sure what caused Parkinson's disease, but assumed environmental factors such as exposure to chemicals or past head injuries were largely to blame. Scientists analyzed genetic samples from more than 12,000 people with Parkinson's disease and more than 21,000 from the general population in Europe and the U.S. They found people with the highest number of mutations in the 11 genes linked to Parkinson's were two-and-a-half times more likely to develop the disease than people who had the least amount of mutations. © CBC 2011

Keyword: Parkinsons; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 14948 - Posted: 02.03.2011

By Rob Stein The federal government has rejected yet another new weight-loss drug. The Food and Drug Administration notified Orexigen Therapeutics of San Diego that it would not authorize the sale of the drug Contrave, according to a statement released Tuesday by the company. The FDA "noted concern about the cardiovascular safety profile" of the drug when used "long-term in a popularion of overweight and obese subjects," the company said. The agency said the drug could not be approved before the company conducted a study big enough and long enough to show that the risks do not outweigh the benefits. The decision comes as somewhat of a surprise. An FDA advisory panel in December endorsed the drug's approval, breaking a string of disappointments in the effort to find the first new pharmacological weapon to fight the obesity epidemic in more than a decade. "We are surprised and extremely disappointed with the agency's request in light of the extensive discussion and resulting vote on this topic at the December 7 advisory committee meeting," Orexigen President and chief executive Michael Narachi said in a statement. "We plan to work closely with the agency to gain more information to determine the appropriate next steps regarding the Contrave application." Contrave is a combination of naltrexone, which is used to treat alcohol and drug addiction, and buproprion, which is sold as Wellbutrin when used as an antidepressant and Zyban when used to help people quit smoking. © 1996-2011 The Washington Post

Keyword: Obesity; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14947 - Posted: 02.03.2011

By NATALIE ANGIER Amid all the psychosocial caterwauling these days over the relative merits of tiger mothers and helicopter dads, allow me to make a pitch for the quietly dogged parenting style of the New Caledonian crow. In the complexity, fluidity and sophistication of their tool use, their ability to manipulate and bird-handle sticks, leaves, wires, strings and any other natural or artificial object they can find into the perfect device for fishing out food, or fishing out second-, third- or higher-order tools, the crows have no peers in the nonhuman vivarium, and that includes such textbook dexterous smarties as elephants, macaques and chimpanzees. Videos of laboratory studies with the crows have gone viral, showing the birds doing things that look practically faked. In one famous example from Oxford University, a female named Betty methodically bends a straight piece of wire against the outside of a plastic cylinder to form the shape of a hook, which she then inserts into the plastic cylinder to extract a handled plug from the bottom as deftly as one might pull a stopper from a drain. Talking-cat videos just don’t stand a chance. So how do the birds get so crafty at crafting? New reports in the journals Animal Behaviour and Learning and Behavior by researchers at the University of Auckland suggest that the formula for crow success may not be terribly different from the nostrums commonly served up to people: Let your offspring have an extended childhood in a stable and loving home; lead by example; offer positive reinforcement; be patient and persistent; indulge even a near-adult offspring by occasionally popping a fresh cockroach into its mouth; and realize that at any moment a goshawk might swoop down and put an end to the entire pedagogical program. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Evolution; Intelligence
Link ID: 14946 - Posted: 02.03.2011

By Brian Mossop In 2007, James Watson eyed his genome for the very first time. Through more than 50 years of scientific and technological advancement, Watson saw the chemical structure he once helped unravel now fused into a personal genetic landscape laid out before him. Yet there was a small stretch of nucleic acids on chromosome 19 that he preferred to leave uncovered, a region that coded the apolipoprotein E gene. APOE, as it’s called, has been a telling genetic landmark of Alzheimer’s risk, strongly correlated to the disease since the early 90s. Watson’s grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, and without any reasonable treatments or suitable preventive strategies, the father of DNA decided the information was too volatile, its revelation creating more potential harm than good. Watson’s apprehension was warranted. Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease have consistently failed, sometimes miserably. But as we learn more and more about the brain, it has become apparent that genetics alone rarely dictate the course of disease. Instead, brain disorders result from a complex interaction of our genes and the environments to which we’re exposed. And now, a recent wave of research has unveiled another player in the genesis of neurodegenerative disease: stress. While scientists have already catalogued the effect of our surroundings and environment on psychological conditions – including depression and anxiety disorders – new studies suggest that stress may also figure into the complex equation that determines if someone will develop a neurodegenerative disease or not. Because stress can be mitigated through lifestyle changes, people may finally gain some control over these devastating, and feared, illnesses. © 2011 Scientific American,

Keyword: Stress; Alzheimers
Link ID: 14945 - Posted: 02.01.2011

Researchers have found a way to predict how successful a smoker will be at quitting by using an MRI scan to look for activity in a region of the brain associated with behavior change. The scans were performed on 28 heavy smokers who had joined an anti-smoking program, according to the study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Health Psychology. Participants were asked to watch a series of commercials about quitting smoking while a magnetic resonance imaging machine scanned their brains for activity. After each ad, subjects in the study "rated how it affected their intention to quit, whether it increased their confidence about quitting, and how much they related to the message," researchers explained. Those who showed activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during the ads were "significantly linked to reductions in smoking behavior" in the month that followed, regardless of how the people said they were affected by the ad. "What is exciting is that by knowing what is going on in someone's brain during the ads, we can do twice as well at predicting their future behavior, compared to if we only knew their self-reported estimate of how successful they would be or their intention to quit," said lead author Emily Falk. "It seems that our brain activity may provide information that introspection does not," added Falk, director of the Communication Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Michigan. 4 © 2011 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Brain imaging; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 14944 - Posted: 02.01.2011

By Laura Sanders A year of moderate exercise doesn’t just bulk up muscles — it beefs up the brain, too, a new study finds. A memory center in the brain called the hippocampus shrinks a little bit each year with age, but older adults who walked routinely for a year actually gained hippocampus volume, researchers report in a study to appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “I think it’s a very exciting contribution to see that walking at a fairly vigorous rate will actually affect a key structure of the brain,” says neuroscientist Carl Cotman of the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the study. “So for healthy elderly, it’s good news and would hopefully encourage people to figure that exercise is worth it.” In the study, 60 adults aged 55 to 80 scaled up gradually until they walked for 40 minutes three times a week, enough to get their heart rates up. Sixty other participants did toning workouts that included weight training, yoga sessions and stretching for the same amount of time. After a year of toning, a part of these subjects’ brains called the anterior hippocampus lost a little over 1 percent of its volume. In contrast, a year of aerobic exercise led to about a 2 percent increase in anterior hippocampus volume. Study participants who got their heart rates up performed slightly better on a memory test and had higher levels of a brain-aiding molecule called BDNF, the researchers found. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 14943 - Posted: 02.01.2011

By Bruce Bower SAN ANTONIO — Oxytocin, a hormone with a rosy reputation for getting people to love, trust and generally make nice with one another, can get down and dirty, according to evidence presented on January 28 at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This brain-altering substance apparently amplifies whatever social proclivities a person already possesses, whether positive or negative, says psychologist Jennifer Bartz of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Previous work has shown that a nasal blast of the hormone encourages a usually trusting person to become more trusting (SN Online: 5/21/08), but now Bartz and her colleagues find that it also makes a highly suspicious person more uncooperative and hostile than ever. “Oxytocin does not simply make everyone feel more secure, trusting and prosocial,” Bartz says. These new results raise concerns about plans by some researchers to administer oxytocin to people with autism and other psychiatric conditions that include social difficulties, she adds. Her team studied 14 people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and 13 volunteers with no psychiatric conditions. Symptoms of borderline personality disorder include severe insecurity about relationships, fears of abandonment and constant, needy reassurance-seeking from partners. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Emotions
Link ID: 14942 - Posted: 02.01.2011

By C. CLAIBORNE RAY Q. Does the body put on fat in actual layers, or does fat I accumulate now mix with body fat I’ve had for years? A. “Fat is deposited diffusely and not in layers,” said Louis J. Aronne, director of the comprehensive weight control center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. “It is added to fat cells that already contain fat and expands them." If weight is gained rapidly, Dr. Aronne said, new fat cells may be made, but they do not accumulate in layers. “If subcutaneous fat stores cannot accept all the fat for genetic, medical or other reasons,” he said, “more of it winds up inside the abdomen, where it presents a greater metabolic risk because it is in the circulation of the liver.” A 2008 study in the journal Nature found that the number of fat cells in the body is set in childhood and early adolescence and stays constant even after significant weight loss, for both lean and obese people. “This explains why it’s so difficult to lose weight,” Dr. Aronne said. “When fat cells shrink, levels of a fat-cell hormone, leptin, drop faster than fat mass is reduced. This tricks the brain into thinking you’ve lost more weight than you actually have. It’s also interesting that fat cells don’t live forever, but the number somehow remains constant.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 14941 - Posted: 02.01.2011

ANN CURRY, co-host: It sounds almost too incredible to imagine, doctors removing half of a person's brain so that they could live a better life . Well, that's exactly what they did to this two-year-old girl from Washington state to help her deal with a rare disorder. In a moment we're going to meet her and her parents, but first, NBC 's Miguel Almaguer has their story. MIGUEL ALMAGUER reporting: For two-year-old Katie Verdecchia , simple steps have meant great strides in her recovery. Katie was a beautiful baby and appeared to be healthy, but just a month after her parents, Maryalicia and Brian , brought their little girl home, they noticed something was wrong. Katie had a twitch in her arm, a shake in her leg. She was having seizures. Mr. BRIAN VERDECCHIA: She was seizing 25, 30 percent of the time, at -- any time she was awake. Ms. MARYALICIA VERDECCHIA: Sometimes as much as 10 minutes, you know, in length, each episode. ALMAGUER: The diagnosis, Aicardi syndrome , a rare disorder where the right and left sides of the brain don't connect. The seizures meant Katie 's brain couldn't develop. Ms. VERDECCHIA: When you're told that your child's going to be going downhill and possibly having, you know, a shorter life than eight years, you're going to do what you have to do for your child. © 2011 MSNBC Interactive

Keyword: Epilepsy; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 14940 - Posted: 02.01.2011

by Elizabeth Pennisi Are you a worrier? Low on energy? You might be able to blame your state of mind on the bugs in your gut. Researchers studying behavior and gene activity in mice have found that these microbes appear to help shape brain development. If the findings translate to humans, they could lead to new ways to treat depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders. Twenty years ago, people would have laughed at the suggestion that gut microbes could influence brain function, says immunologist Sven Pettersson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. But in the past decade, researchers have come to appreciate that the bacteria living in and on our bodies—collectively called the human microbiome—play a role in how our bodies work, affecting everything from allergies to obesity. Pettersson began to suspect a mind-microbe link 5 years ago when he and genomicist Shugui Wang of the Genome Institute of Singapore found through gene-expression studies that gut microbes regulated the activity of a gene important to the production of serotonin, a key brain chemical. He recruited Karolinska Institute neurobiologist Rochellys Diaz Heijtz to assess behavioral differences between germ-free mice—which have been bred to lack any microbial partners—and mice with intact gut bacteria. The researchers also dissected out major regions of the brain and measured gene activity in each region in both types of animals. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Depression; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 14939 - Posted: 02.01.2011

PEOPLE with busy lives don't necessarily live longer, but they might feel as if they do. Our brains use the world around us to keep track of time, and the more there is going on, the slower time feels. Brains were thought to measure time by using some kind of internal clock that generates events at a relatively regular rate. To test whether external stimuli might also play a role in our ability to process time, Misha Ahrens and Maneesh Sahani at University College London showed 20 subjects a video of either a randomly changing stimulus - statistically modelled on the way that things naturally change randomly in the world around us - or a static image, for a set period of time. When asked to judge how much time had passed, the volunteers who had been shown the moving stimulus were significantly more accurate. The subjects were also shown the video at two different speeds and asked to rate the duration of each clip. They thought both clips lasted the same amount of time, even though the faster version was shorter (Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.12.043). The results suggest that the brain exploits changes in visual information, when it's available, to judge time, says Sahani. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Attention; Vision
Link ID: 14938 - Posted: 01.31.2011

By Laura Sanders Amputees whose “sense of touch” was rerouted from their missing limbs view their prosthetic not as a tool, but as part of the body, a study to appear in Brain suggests. Such enhanced sense of ownership, scientists say, might lead to prosthetics that operate seamlessly in place of a missing limb. The new study was conducted with two arm amputees who had undergone a surgery called targeted reinnervation, in which the remaining nerve ends from the severed arm were rerouted to an area on the arm above the site of amputation. This patch of skin serves as a proxy — touching different parts of the area makes the amputee feel as though distinct parts of his or her missing arm were being touched. The research “tells us about the brain — that the brain can take this abnormal sensation and attribute it to the hand, to the arm,” says neuroscientist Steven Hsiao of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who wasn’t involved in the work. “These people are feeling something. They feel like they’re really touching something, presumably.” To create that feeling of limb ownership, or “embodiment,” researchers in Chicago led by Paul Marasco designed a pressure-sensing system for the prosthetics. Each time a sensor on the prosthetic hand detected a touch, it would send a signal to a small robot that would poke a targeted area of the reinnervated skin. Using the robot system, Marasco and his team had each subject sit at a table, with the prosthetic arm unattached but arranged in a natural position. As the subject watched a researcher touch the prosthetic hand, the robot would simultaneously press on the reinnervated skin. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Robotics
Link ID: 14937 - Posted: 01.31.2011

By Katherine Harmon Although most people in developed countries get plenty of calories each day, their diets are often lacking in key nutrients that their bodies have evolved to expect. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as those found in fish and walnuts, are one category of crucial ingredients that the body cannot make on its own. Although these beneficial fatty acids are known to be good for heart health, researchers are just beginning to learn how omega-3s impact our brains—and by extension, our moods and behavior. Lipids are integral to the central nervous system, and as studies of statins and diabetes drugs have shown, dropping levels of some lipids can have deleterious cognitive effects. Omega-3 deficiencies specifically have been linked to mood disorders, such as depression, but the underlying neural mechanism has been subject to debate. New research in mice, published online January 30 in Nature Neuroscience, offers insights into just how dietary intake of these fatty acids might alter the brain's function. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) "Our results can now corroborate clinical and epidemiological studies which have revealed associations between an omega-3/omega-6 imbalance and mood disorders," scientists behind the new study commented in a prepared statement. © 2011 Scientific American,

Keyword: Depression; Obesity
Link ID: 14936 - Posted: 01.31.2011

Tiffany O'Callaghan Invasive biopsy is currently the only sure way to diagnose the degenerative neurological condition Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease (CJD). But a highly sensitive assay could change that, providing a fast, accurate alternative for early diagnosis of this rare but deadly condition. In its most common form, known as sporadic CJD, the disease affects roughly one in a million people. Beginning in the 1990s, several cases of a variation of CJD known as vCJD were reported among people who had consumed beef from cows infected with another disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The findings, published online in Nature Medicine1, also suggest that the assay — developed by microbiologist Ryuichiro Atarashi of Nagasaki University, Japan, and his team — could pave the way for the screening of broad sectors of the population. CJD is a prion disease, in which an isomer of a common protein known as the prion protein (PrP) takes on an abnormal shape and becomes an infectious variant called PrPSc. This variant is thought to trigger the subsequent malformation of other PrP proteins. Unlike their normal counterparts, PrPSc prions cannot be broken down, and instead accumulate — often clustering in brain tissue. The pockets of abnormal tissue that result cause brain tissue to develop a sponge-like appearance, and because prion conditions can be spread by affected humans or animals, the diseases are often referred to as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Humans can be affected by several such conditions, while in addition to BSE in cows, there are several other such disorders among animals, including a condition called scrapie in sheep and hamsters. © 2011 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 14935 - Posted: 01.31.2011

By KATHRYN J. ZERBE, M.D. Reading is an inestimable resource in just about any undertaking, especially so when one discovers a work that performs a real service and is written with passion, accuracy and pragmatism. Such is the case with two unflinching personal narratives on eating disorders, Portia de Rossi’s “Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain” and the 25th anniversary edition of “Bulimia: A Guide to Recovery,” by Lindsey Hall and Leigh Cohn. Both works address a question that often comes up from patients with eating disorders, as well as family members, in my own office practice: “Are there any especially helpful books or resources that can assist in recovery?” Today, when the Internet is full of sites that offer more facts about how to stay obsessed with food or weight than what might be done to recover, it’s a question that’s not always easy to answer. Ms. de Rossi’s “Unbearable Lightness” (Simon & Schuster, 2010) is a mesmerizing account of the devastating psychological and physical effects of self-starvation, excessive exercise and purging. Many readers who know about the range of life-threatening medical consequences of anorexia will still be shaken by seeing the photographs — and reading the wrenching captions — of the actress when, weighing a mere 78 pounds, she collapsed and nearly died. The agony of being scrutinized daily, if not hourly, by others in one’s profession may not be the issue that resonates most deeply for those outside of the worlds of acting or dance. But every patient I have treated in practice will recognize something in the descriptions of harsh self-criticism, denial and pretense that Ms. de Rossi poignantly but realistically makes explicit in her memoir. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 14934 - Posted: 01.31.2011

By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho — Teenagers who thought about or attempted suicide were more likely to have suffered sleep disorders in earlier years, researchers say. Idaho State University psychology professor Maria Wong, who worked on the study, said the finding should aid parents, educators and others in identifying teens at risk of harming themselves. She said adolescents are more willing to talk about sleep problems than suicidal thoughts or attempts, giving adults an opening to discuss and monitor problems that may be more serious than simply a teen's trouble falling asleep. "It's easier to broach the topic of sleep with patients, since it's easier to talk about a physical problem," said Wong, who worked with colleagues from the University of Michigan on the study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. "It's easier for them to answer questions like, 'Did you sleep well last night?' and get into why they are not sleeping well and how they are feeling lately," Wong said. The study tracked 280 boys and 112 girls from Michigan, beginning when they were ages 12 to 14 and ending when they were between 15 and 17. Participants responded to such questions as whether they had nightmares, felt tired or otherwise had trouble sleeping. They also were asked about whether they had cut or otherwise hurt themselves. Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters.

Keyword: Sleep; Depression
Link ID: 14933 - Posted: 01.31.2011

By Jesse Bering Author’s note: The following excerpt is the Introduction to my new book, The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny and the Meaning of Life. God came from an egg. At least, that’s how He came to me. Don’t get me wrong, it was a very fancy egg. More specifically, it was an ersatz Fabergé egg decorated with colorful scenes from the Orient. Now about two dozen years before the episode I’m about to describe, somewhere in continental Europe, this particular egg was shunted through the vent of an irritable hen, pierced with a needle and drained of its yolk, and held in the palm of a nimble artist who, for hours upon hours, painstakingly hand-painted it with elaborate images of a stereotypical Asian society. The artist, who specialized in such kitsch materials, then sold the egg along with similar wares to a local vendor, who placed it carefully in the front window of a side-street souvenir shop. Here it eventually caught the eye of a young German girl, who coveted it, purchased it, and after some time admiring it in her apartment against the backdrop of the Black Forest, wrapped it in layers of tissue paper, placed it in her purse, said a prayer for its safe transport, and took it on a transatlantic journey to a middle-class American neighborhood where she was to live with her new military husband. There, in the family room of her modest new home, on a bookshelf crammed with romance novels and knickknacks from her earlier life, she found a cozy little nook for the egg and propped it up on a miniature display stand. A year or so later she bore a son, Peter, who later befriended the boy across the street, who suffered me as a tagalong little brother, the boy who, one aimless summer afternoon, would enter the German woman’s family room, see the egg, become transfixed by this curiosity, and crush it accidentally in his seven-year-old hand. © 2011 Scientific American, a Division of Nature America, Inc.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 14932 - Posted: 01.29.2011

By SINDYA N. BHANOO For some genes, either the father’s version or the mother’s version is active, but not both. Which version of the gene works is determined before conception, as the sperm and egg are developing, in a process called imprinting. By mimicking that process in the lab, and turning off a gene in mice, scientists have produced a change in social dominance behavior. In laboratory tests, mice with the paternal version of the gene known as Grb10 inactivated were more aggressive in their behavior, according to new research in the journal Nature. The researchers had two methods of measuring social dominance. They found that mice with the inactive gene engaged in more social grooming, and nibbled off more fur and whiskers of other mice. Also, when two mice were placed in a tube and approached each other, mice with the inactive gene were less likely to back down and turn away. “Both males and females with the paternal gene off are adopting this socially dominant behavior,” said Andrew Ward, a geneticist with the Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Bath in Britain. In natural reproduction, the paternal version of the gene is generally active, Dr. Ward said, but some mice may have a greater number of active versions than others. “We’ve shown the extreme,” he said. “But you might have a more subtle variation in how much this behavior is expressed.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Aggression; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 14931 - Posted: 01.29.2011

By SINDYA N. BHANOO Over the December holidays, my husband went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not my idea of fun, but he came back rejuvenated and energetic. He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, until the end of March. He’s running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life. I’ll admit I’m a skeptic. But now, scientists say that meditators like my husband may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes. But how exactly did these study volunteers, all seeking stress reduction in their lives but new to the practice, meditate? So many people talk about meditating these days. Within four miles of our Bay Area home, there are at least six centers that offer some type of meditation class, and I often hear phrases like, “So how was your sit today?” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 14930 - Posted: 01.29.2011