27 minutes to improve memory

8/7/2019 27 minutes to improve memory

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27 minutes to improve memoryA new study shows mindfulness meditation training changes brain

structure in eight weeks

Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation programme appears to make

measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self,

empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of

Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General

Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document

meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.

"Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness

and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also

provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,"

says Sara Lazar, PhD, of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program,

the study's senior author. "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."


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Previous studies from Lazar's group and others found structural differences

between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with

no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas

associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations

could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.

For the current study, MR images were take of the brain structure of 16 study

participants two weeks before and after they took part in the 8-week

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of

Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that

included practice of mindfulness meditation - which focuses on nonjudgmental

awareness of sensations, feelings and state of mind - participants received audio

recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how

much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images were also taken of

a control group of non-meditators over a similar time interval.

Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each

day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness

questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-

participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas


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where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found

increased grey-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for

learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness,

compassion and introspection. Participant-reported reductions in stress also were

correlated with decreased grey-matter density in the amygdala, which is known

to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a

self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified

in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might

be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in

the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage

of time.

"It is fascinating to see the brain's plasticity and that, by practicing meditation,

we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being

and quality of life." says Britta Hlzel, PhD, first author of the paper and a

research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. "Other studies in

different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant

improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the

underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change."


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Amishi Jha, PhD, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates

mindfulness-training's effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says,

"These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based

training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only

be reduced with an 8-week mindfulness training programme but that this

experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amydala, a

finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR's

potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic

stress disorder." Jha was not one of the study investigators.

Source: India Syndicate based on release from Massachusetts General Hospital

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24/01/2011

Sleep best time to strengthenmemories, says new studyThe best way to "remember" something important is to remember it

while you are asleep, suggests a new study.
http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4834710http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4810645http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4607137http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4810645http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4607137http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4834710


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The research, led by Bjorn Rasch of the University of Basel in Switzerland, claims

reactivating newly learned memories during sleep rather than when awake does

a better job of strengthening the memory trace.

The work could have clinical implications for treating disorders such as post-

traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study involved training subjects in a spatial memory task to learn an object's

location in a grid. At the same time an odour was released - the idea being to

associate the memory with the smell.

One group then went to sleep, while the second group stayed awake.

After about 20 minutes, while the sleeping group's brain wave patterns were in

slow wave sleep (SWS), both groups were subjected to the same odour again to

reactivate the memory.


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After another 20 minutes, the sleeping group were woken, and both groups were

given a similar task, but the objects were in different locations and without the

odour.

Half an hour later they were asked to recall the position of the cards from the

original task.

Rasch and colleagues found both groups were correct about 60 per cent of the

time without any odour assistance.

But once the odour was added to the test, the non-sleeping group were only

correct about 42 per cent of the time, compared to the sleeping group's 84 per

cent.

"As we expected, reactivation during waking destabilised memories. In contrast,

reactivation during SWS immediately stabilised memories, thereby directly

increasing their resistance to interference," ABC Science quoted the researchers

as saying.

The study appears in this week's Nature Neuroscience.

Source: ANI

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http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4431111http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4357658http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4330880http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4431111http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4357658http://lifestyle.in.msn.com/health/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4330880

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27 minutes to improve memory