Wiki: Neuroplasticity

It is impossible to avoid the internet. It is on every phone, in every house, and even on school buses. Internet addiction is becoming more common with our youth.

An active mind is a growing mind. Michael Baime’s report on contemplative practices, like meditation, attempts to put some real neuroscience behind the claim that these practices actively help the brain to grow. Enjoy! Article Source: Shambhala Sun ~Marsha One of the most interesting areas of research on the effects of contemplative practices has explored [...]

Research has found that the hippocampus can shrink in the event of a life-changing religious experience.  Is this shrinkage tied to a major amount of stress?  Is it possible that this stress can cause a life-changing religious experience?  Researchers from Duke University are trying to uncover how religion is linked to various changes in the [...]

Take a moment and enjoy this information regarding how Mindfulness ties into Neuroplasticity. Dr. Dan Siegel gives his thoughts and experiences with Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity in his illuminating video below.

Dr. Doug Fields gives a talk on how new research surrounding glia cells has changed the way scientists look at the brain!  Enjoy the clip from TEDxDendrixCollege! Article Source: Integral Options Cafe ~Marsha In this talk, Dr. Doug Fields discusses glia, or “glue,” which make up 85% of the cells in the human brain. New [...]

Hooray for Richie Davidson’s team — not only an excellent journal article on mindfulness research and neuroplasticity, but also not published behind the usual subscription/paywall. Article From: NCBI Article Credit: Slagter HA, Davidson RJ, Lutz A. Enjoy, ~ Marsha Abstract Although the adult brain was once seen as a rather static organ, it is now clear that [...]

Vulnerability, connection, empathy, shame… all wrapped up in a warm, funny, research-based talk. I love it! Video Credit: TEDxHouston Enjoy, ~ Marsha

  A year or so after they were married, Harold and Erica spent a week with Harold’s parents at their house in Aspen. They went riding and rafting and they attended an ideas festival. They sat through panel discussions on green technology and on how to adopt a charter school, and they spent a few [...]

From the “gotta-be-able-to-laugh-at-yourself” department: Article From: “Mind Hacks” Enjoy! ~ Marsha Satirical website Newsbiscuit has a cutting article making fun of the regular ‘brain scans show…’ news items that are a staple of the popular science pages. Scientists are heralding a breakthrough in brain scan technology after a team at Oxford University produced full colour images of [...]

From one of my favorite meditation teachers, Sharon Salzburg (who has a new book out, The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life With Love and Compassion).  Sharon posted this on her Facebook page, and I thought I’d share it here as well. “Though a convention, a new year can mark new beginnings, bringing thoughts of [...]

Here’s an interesting article from The GreaterGood.Berkley.Edu which explores the ages-old “Nature or Nurture” argument where it pertains to the behaviors generally associated with heroism.  Is there a “hero” gene?  Is it social or economic influences?  Can neuroscience explain the condition of heroism? Enjoy, ~Marsha What makes us good? What makes us evil? Research has [...]

By Sharon Begley Article from Newsweek Enjoy, ~Marsha This would be a whole lot easier—this quest for ways to improve our brain—if scientists understood the mechanisms of intelligence even half as well as they do the mechanisms of, say, muscular strength. If we had the neuronal version of how lifting weights increases strength (chemical and [...]

…with thanks to @WilliamHarryman at integral-options.blogspot.com for bringing this interview to my attention. Enjoy! ~ Marsha WHEN I MEET UP with Norman Doidge it’s at the end of a long day of interviews and he looks exhausted. “Give me a few minutes to get myself together,” he says wearily as he ducks up to his hotel [...]

Robert Sapolsky is a neuroscientist at Stanford who manages to write in broad, beautiful strokes — here, about metaphors, the insula, and the anterior cingulate cortex. (He’s also the author of “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.”) Article from The New York Times “Opinionator” Enjoy, ~ Marsha Despite rumors to the contrary, there are many ways [...]

What an amazing meeting of the minds – and brains – of some of the pioneers and leaders in neuroscience, emotions, and mindfulness! By Roundtable Participants Article From Tricycle Enjoy, ~ Marsha Since 1987 the Dalai Lama has met biennially with small groups of Western scientists to talk about the nature of mind and reality, [...]

Cognitive Brain: An interesting look on how our brain groups information together to be able to process patterns and familiar situations. But this might also lead to difficulties with introducing new material into a familiar situation. Article from WIRED of chess, expertise, and brain change. Author Credit Jonah Lehrer Enjoy! ~ Marsha In the 1940s, [...]

Here’s a great article originating at UC Davis, found on ScienceDaily, which provides a significant link between mindfulness meditation and psychological well-being. Enjoy ~ Marsha Positive psychological changes that occur during meditation training are associated with greater telomerase activity, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Francisco. [...]

In this video, Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux gives a short primer on the brain’s emotional processor. Very cool. Enjoy! ~ Marsha

Fathers and their children reshape one another’s neurons By Brian Mossop Does parenting ReWire the Dad’s brain?  Here’s a very interesting article from Scientific American that takes a look at how understanding the new brain connections that result from parenthood. Enjoy! Last May, I took a trip to San Diego for my brother-in-law’s graduation from college, [...]

Excellent brief article on meditation and neuroplasticity. Keep in mind, though, that David Lynch’s foundation focuses on Trascendental Meditation, which, for me, has provided less compelling scientific evidence for the kinds of brain changes I advocate than mindfulness meditation. By Jeanne Ball As we go through life, our brain is always changing and adapting, say [...]

Video games, violence, empathy… read this carefully. The article below is not saying that playing violent video games will make kids into violent adults, and it’s not saying that violent video games are correlated with an increase in violent crimes. It is suggesting that having the experience — even virtual — of shoving aside one’s [...]

Molecular clues about rewiring the brain, love, attachment, resiliency, stress, the hippocampus… Thanks to William Harryman at Integral Options Cafe Author Credit: Carl Zimmer – From DiscoverMagazine.com This month’s column is a tale of two rats. One rat got lots of attention from its mother when it was young; she licked its fur many times [...]

More and more, it’s clear that it’s all about regulating (and integrating) our brains… this is a great piece by Judith Warner in the NY Times Sunday magazine.  Thanks to @davidrock101 for hipping me to this one. By JUDITH WARNER The gulf oil fiasco is just the latest instance in which a lack of regulation [...]

Goldie Hawn talks about education, children and mindfulness, and brings in researcher Dan Siegel to show the scientific side of these important ideas.

I can’t wait to see some research on whether mindfulness meditation leads to increases in the same “brain resilience” molecule… ScienceDaily (May 17, 2010) — Scientists have discovered a mechanism that helps to explain resilience to stress, vulnerability to depression and how antidepressants work. The new findings, in the reward circuit of mouse and human [...]

Why early reading – let alone from a DVD – is a lousy deal for your child. Most often, the bottom-line reason people find their way to my psychotherapy practice is because of relationship issues — struggling marriages, unsuccessful dating, lousy relationships with family and/or coworkers — and of course, their relationships with themselves are [...]

“What were you thinking?” may be the hue and cry of many parents of teenagers, but the neuroscientists who conducted the study summarized below were more interested in the brain areas involved in figuring out what is going on in someone else’s mind. Knowing more about those brain areas is key in understanding the underpinnings [...]

As you read this article about the Aging Brain, note two things: First, Google searching helped when done one hour per day (not endlessly!). And second, there might be less mistake-making and slowing if you can keep your cortex from shrinking — which mindfulness meditation, practiced regularly, seems to do. For baby-boomers, there is both [...]

The more difficult the decision we face, the more likely we are not to act, according to new research by UCL scientists that examines the neural pathways involved in ‘status quo bias’ in the human brain. The study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), looked at the decision-making of participants [...]

Mirror neurons are a relatively new idea in the quest to understand the brain’s circuitry when it comes to empathy. Until now, their existence in humans had only been hypothesized, not proven (although we knew they existed in other primates). So, now, here they are, detected and measured in humans! Mirror neurons are so much [...]

Yet another interesting bit of work involving Ray Dolan and his collaborators.  Here is the abstract and a summary figure: Humans often accept the status quo when faced with conflicting choice alternatives. However, it is unknown how neural pathways connecting cognition with action modulate this status quo acceptance. Here we developed a visual detection task [...]

Mark Brady, PhD is one of my favorite bloggers about social neuroscience, about raising our kids more mindfully, and healing our own minds/brains: The Golden Rule of Social Neuroscience February 27, 2010 by Mark Brady Shortly after I graduated from high school, I took a job as a drill press operator in a funky machine [...]

“How does the focus of attention using mindful awareness actually change the function and structure of the brain? When we look at these three things together: relationship, mind, and brain, they’re not the same, but they influence one another….” In this video, you’ll get a great taste of “interpersonal neurobiology”—how relationships of all kinds shape [...]

From Robert Emery and Jim Coan, professors at my alma mater, the University of Virginia, answering a reader’s question. By Robert Emery and Jim Coan When people have their feelings hurt, what is actually happening inside the body to cause the physical pain in the chest? —Josh Ceddia, Melbourne, Australia Robert Emery and Jim Coan, professors of psychology at [...]

Here’s how the website describes this gift to anyone interested in the brain: “The G2C Brain is an interactive 3-D model of the brain. It consists of 29 structures that can be rotated in three-dimensional space. Each structure contains key information on brain disorders, brain damage, case studies, and links to modern neuroscience research.” Be sure to [...]

Since I’m all about how important the brain is in how healthy relationships happen (or don’t), I thought it might be a good to pass along a (tongue-in-cheek) resource for Valentine’s Day gifts. The folks at Red Reef Publications have many fine products, including high-quality teaching models of the brain — but they also don’t [...]

Frans de Waal’s work with primates fascinates me. In this clip, he talks with Carl Zimmer of Discover Magazine about how empathy is not something we “decide” to be — that we are able to empathize with the feelings of others because of an involuntary physiologic response. (I have always had a tinge of regret [...]

From Mas Ichise, MD and Bob Innis, MD, PhD at National Institutes of Mental Health comes some primate research on attachment, the brain, and later emotional and behavioral problems: Neuroimaging of the effects on the brain of maternal deprivation. Monkeys who suffered maternal deprivation (raise by their peers, instead) were shown to have a deficit [...]

The Brain as explained by John Cleese

Why meditation does NOT make you a self-involved, zoned-out bliss-ninny. Here’s the polite version of a question I received recently about my support of mindfulness meditation as a practice for well-being in relationships: Why are you encouraging people to zone out? Sitting around pretending they’re above it all, and avoiding real feelings? Who wants to be [...]

A short, very readable piece by my favorite integrator, Dan Siegel, MD, on “The Science of the Mindful Brain.” Dan’s newest book, Mindsight, is now out, and at the very top of my reading list. His thinking about mindfulness, the brain, and living more fully are superb! By Dan Siegel, MD. All too often, the [...]

Mindfulness isn’t just something to do during meditation. Try integrating even one of these ideas into your daily rhythm. You’ll be getting the laundry done and rewiring your brain at the same time… From the March issues of Shambhala Sun. Wake with the sun There is no purer light than what we see when we [...]

Your amygdala — an area associated with fear, anxiety, and anger — needs to have clean lines of communication to other parts of the brain. This piece of research reveals more detail about mis-connections from the amygdala in people with a particular anxiety disorder. (If you have anxiety which is poorly controlled, and then you [...]

Nice article on why you need a high-functioning prefrontal cortex — that’s the part of the brain behind your forehead, and it functions a lot like the CEO of your brain. But what’s missing from the article is that the prefrontal cortex needs to be able to communicate well with other brain areas, especially those [...]

A fantastic way to hear one of my “contemplative neuroscience” heroes, Richie Davidson, PhD, talk about the latest findings in neuroplasticity, meditation, and well-being. He says, “It is clear that the intentional deployment of specific mental training strategies (such as those derived from the world’s great contemplative traditions) can induce plastic changes in the brain [...]

From my perspective, having a full, authentic life is about having healthy, vibrant relationships — your relationship with yourself, with others you know, with the world at large, and/or with something greater, if that suits you. Without relationships, there can’t be much else. So how do you make changes in how you do your relationships? [...]

This type of brain imaging, fMRI, is considered the gold standard in research on the brain (and is used in many of the studies on meditation’s effects on the brain). I find it fascinating, and I’m glad to find more and more articles in less-technical jargon talking about it. Can a brain scanner decode your [...]

From The Scientific American Blog Author Credit: Carina Storrs Clinical depression can zap the pleasure out of an enjoyable meal or the thrill out of winning a prize, among other symptoms. Not surprisingly, a region of the brain involved in reward and motivation, called the nucleus accumbens, has been associated with depression. But up to now, [...]

From The New York Times A college soccer player retaliates against an opponent by pulling her down by the ponytail. A tennis champion has a tantrum on the court, costing her a shot at winning another major title. An all-star catcher throws an elbow, touching off a brawl that puts his teammates at risk for [...]

I feel fortunate to be a psychotherapist in this day and age. Aside from the change we and our clients can report anecdotally, there is increasing evidence to support the potential for true change within the brain via the therapeutic relationship. I’m no expert in neuroscience and relationships – but am excited about the notion [...]

AUTHOR CREDIT: Mark Brady Except for a brief stint in my early twenties working in for-profit corporate America, for most of my life I have been drawn to so-called “heart work.”  I involved myself with non-profits providing important and meaningful service in the local community. When I lived on the San Francisco peninsula, I volunteered [...]

What appears below also appeared in Sharon Begley’s excellent book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain.  It’s one of the first books I recommend to friends and colleagues who want to understand the early research about changing the brain by using mindfulness meditation. (Of course, when my upcoming book is published, I’ll certainly recommend mine [...]

From Science Daily: ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2009) — Short-term memory may depend in a surprising way on the ability of newly formed neurons to erase older connections. That’s the conclusion of a report in the November 13th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, that provides some of the first evidence in mice and [...]

Why employees (and your kids) sometimes lose the plot David Rock continues his excellent explanation of his model for understanding how your brain can function better at work. His SCARF model includes easy-to-understand neuroscience so you can be at the top of your game. S = Status, C = Certainty, R = Relatedness — covered [...]

It’s never too late to have a (brain that’s wired as if it had a) happy childhood1 Therapists get this question a lot: “Okay, so now that I understand how my history made me a mess when it comes to relationships, what now? It’s not like I can go back in time and change my [...]

You can re-wire your relationship brain. You have the technology. I’m a big fan of David Rock, a fellow blogger on PsychologyToday.com, whose recent post there spoke very compellingly about mindfulness, neuroscience, and how we think and experience the world. His focus is on how your brain works in a work setting, which he has [...]