Rasmus Underbjerg Pinnerup <pinnerup@*fjerndette*privat.dk> wrote:
>En række forskere fra Duke University Medical Center i North Carolina
har
>gennemført verdens hidtil største undersøgelse af, om forbøn har
nogen
>virkning på folk, der undergår hjertekirurgi.
>
>Resultatet viser, at det ikke har nogen indflydelse på patientens
>overlevelsesrate, om folk bad for ham eller ej.
>
UW study reports sustained changes in brain and immune function after
meditation
MADISON -- In a small but highly provocative study, a University of
Wisconsin-Madison research team has found, for the first time, that a
short program in "mindfulness meditation" produced lasting positive
changes in both the brain and the function of the immune system.
The findings suggest that meditation, long promoted as a technique to
reduce anxiety and stress, might produce important biological effects
that improve a person's resiliency.
Richard Davidson, Ph.D., Vilas Professor of psychology and psychiatry
at UW-Madison, led the research team. The study, conducted at the
biotechnology company Promega near Madison, will appear in an upcoming
issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
"Mindfulness meditation," often recommended as an antidote to the
stress and pain of chronic disease, is a practice designed to focus
one's attention intensely on the moment, noting thoughts and feelings
as they occur but refraining from judging or acting on those thoughts
and feelings. The intent is to deepen awareness of the present,
develop skills of focused attention, and cultivate positive emotions
such as compassion.
In the UW study, participants were randomly assigned to one of two
groups. The experimental group, with 25 subjects, received training in
mindfulness meditation from one of its most noted adherents, Jon
Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. (Kabat-Zinn, a popular author of books on stress
reduction, developed the mindfulness-based stress reduction program at
the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.) This group attended a
weekly class and one seven-hour retreat during the study; they also
were assigned home practice for an hour a day, six days a week. The 16
members of the control group did not receive meditation training until
after the study was completed.
For each group, in addition to asking the participants to assess how
they felt, the research team measured electrical activity in the
frontal part of the brain, an area specialized for certain kinds of
emotion. Earlier research has shown that, in people who are generally
positive and optimistic and during times of positive emotion, the left
side of this frontal area becomes more active than the right side
does.
The findings confirmed the researchers' hypothesis: the meditation
group showed an increase of activation in the left-side part of the
frontal region. This suggests that the meditation itself produced more
activity in this region of the brain. This activity is associated with
lower anxiety and a more positive emotional state.
The research team also tested whether the meditation group had better
immune function than the control group did. All the study participants
got a flu vaccine at the end of the eight-week meditation group. Then,
at four and eight weeks after vaccine administration, both groups had
blood tests to measure the level of antibodies they had produced
against the flu vaccine. While both groups (as expected) had developed
increased antibodies, the meditation group had a significantly larger
increase than the controls, at both four and eight weeks after
receiving the vaccine.
"Although our study is preliminary and more research clearly is
warranted," said Davidson, "we are very encouraged by these results.
The Promega employees who took part have given us a wonderful
opportunity to demonstrate a real biological impact of this ancient
practice."
Davidson, who is integrally involved with the HealthEmotions Research
Institute at UW, plans further research on the impact of meditation.
He is currently studying a group of people who have been using
meditation for more than 30 years. His research team is also planning
to study the impact of mindfulness meditation on patients with
particular illnesses.