1. Contemplative Neuroscience I Emiliana Simon-Thomas

2. How can we study the effects of meditation on the brain? 1.Compare the brains of people who are expert meditators to the brains of people who never meditated. 2.Teach people how to meditate and examine: a)Does meditation practice causes changes in the brain between before and after meditating? b)Are there differences in the brains of people that learn and practice meditation compared to people that learn and practice another skill?

3. What can we measure? 1.Anatomy: cortical thickness, connectivity 2.Function: activity during meditation, passive background activity, reactions to stimuli 3.Behavior (presumed to be produced by brain activation) during laboratory tasks a)Stimulus detection b)Cognitive performance c)Emotional experience d)Social factors: sharing, cooperation

4. Studying the brains of meditation experts

5. AnatomyAnatomy

6. Brain regions that are thicker – or contain greater density of cells and coonection in meditators: anterior insula and prefrontal cortex.

7. སྒོམ་མ་རྒྱག་མཁན་དང་ བསྡུར་ན་རྒྱག་མཁན་གྱི་ ཀླད་པར་སྐྱ་རྫས་མང་བ་ ཡོད། བྷོ་རོ་མན་རྒྱ་ཁྱོན། གླིང་ཤུན། ལུས་ཚོར་ཀླད་ཤུན།

8. Vestergaard-Poulsena, P. et al. (2009). Behavior, 20: 170-174. མྱོང་བ་ཅན་ གྱི་རྫོགས་ ཆེན་སྒོམ་པ་ པོ་རྣམས་ཀྱི་ ཀླད་པའི་གཞི་ རྐང་གི་ནང་ དུ་ཀླད་རྫས་ སྐྱ་རྫས་ཧ་ ཅང་གི་སྟུགས་ ཚད་ཆེ་བ་ཡོད། མདའ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་གཡོན་ དུ་གསལ་བའི་ཀླད་པའི་ གཞི་རྐང་དེ་ཉིད་རྒྱ་ སྐྱེད་བྱས་པའི་སྣང་ བརྙན་དེ་སྟོན་གྱི་ ཡོད།

9. Studying the brains of meditation experts The brains of expert meditators show greater gyrification (cortical folding).

10. Studying the brains of meditation experts Brain regions that are have more gray matter – or more neural cell bodies in meditators: the hippocampus

11. FunctionFunction

12. Electroencephalography (EEG) Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) FunctionFunction

13. Studying the brains of meditation experts: focused attention and open monitoring

14. Expert meditators brains: a)Show reduced amygdala activation (vigilant orientation) to negative distractor sounds. b)& (c) Greater discrimination for allocating attentional resources towards important vs. distractor stimuli. d)(e) (f) & (g) Greater high frequency, gamma band (40Hz), frequency activation.

15. Studying the brains of meditation experts: focused attention

16. Expert meditators brains: a)(b) & (c) Engage brain regions that support attention control more robustly during FA meditation.

17. Studying the brains of meditation experts: open presence

18. Pain signal across all: yellow During pain, med>novice: orange Before pain, novice>med: green

19. Studying the brains of meditation experts: open monitoring Expert meditators brains: a)(b), (c) & (d) Show greater signal (sensory & physiological) during pain, lesser pain signal during period before (e.g. anticipating pain). e)& (f) Less anticipation-of-pain signal predicted more robust change in signal during pain, and more meditation practice predicted less anticipation of pain.

20. Studying the brains of meditation experts: compassion

21. Expert meditators brains: a)(b), (c), (d) & (e) Show greater activity in brain regions associated with affective empathy (feeling moved by emotional expressions from others) in response to emotional sounds, especially sad sounds.

22. Studying the brains of meditation experts: loving kindness Brain regions that show LOWER activity in meditators than novices.

23. Studying the brains of meditation experts: loving kindness Brain regions that show GREATER activation in meditators than novices.

24. Studying the brains of meditation experts: loving kindness Brain regions that show LOWER interconnec tedness in meditators than novices.

25. Studying the brains of meditation experts: loving kindness Brain regions that show GREATER interconnec tedness in meditators than novices.

26. Studying the brains of meditation experts: non dual awareness Differences in inter-area correlation for focused attention, fixation and NDA meditation.