Zen and the Brain is a book written by Dr. James Austin, neurology professor and Zen practitioner. This post features the results of some of the studies cited in the book. The book itself is huge and has much more information.
• It takes 400 milliseconds (about half a second) to direct attention from one item to another.
• A study found that people who practice mindfulness meditation for sixteen hours a day for three months show a slight increase in their visual sensitivity.
• Research shows that chronically anxious patients who learn to enhance their alpha rhythms gain a feeling of increased well-being.
• A distinctive theta rhythm appears more often in extroverts who begin with a low anxiety level, and in other subjects who have their anxiety reduced by taking benzodiazepines.
• Astronauts show increased theta activity when they become weightless.
• Buddhist meditative chants are associated with enhanced, rhythmic, synchronized theta activity.
• EEG mapping of an experienced Soto Zen monk who entered a deeper stage of meditation after thirty-two minutes of zazen showed alpha and theta activity predominating throughout the frontal and parietal regions.
• A study of college students anticipating a stressful electric shock demonstrated that anxiety was reduced when they paid attention to their breathing in order to maintain it at the slow rate of only eight breaths per minute.
• An EEG study found that extroverts had baseline brain waves higher in amplitude than introverts.
• A study demonstrated that stimulating the septal region of patients induced a pleasurable response and immediately relieved the severe pain and anguish associated with advanced cancer.
• Extroverted people and aggressive patients show evidence of higher dopamine turnover in spinal fluid.
• A PET scan study showed that blood flow increases in certain right side temporal lobe regions when auditory messages reactivate personal memories.
• A study found that positive changes in mood occurred in approximately 25% of the 2514 electrical stimulations in one study, most of which were delivered to the frontal lobes.
• Normal subjects increase the metabolic activity in their right midfrontal cortex when they pay attention to an auditory task.
• Patients with sustained damage to the right frontal lobe cannot pay attention during a monotonous repetitive task.
• PET scans of yoga meditators showed reduced metabolism in the posterior regions of the cortex.
• In adult women, the EEG shows activation in the right frontal regions during negative emotions and activation in the left frontal regions during positive emotions.
• In human subjects, LSD increases fast activity in cortical EEG leads.
• PET neuroimaging studies on patients with monopolar depression that runs in families show amygdala activation and reduced volume in a part of the left anterior cingulate gyrus.
