Psych Central News
Meditation’s Effects on Emotion Shown to Persist
“This is the first time meditation training has been shown to affect emotional processing in the brain outside of a meditative state,” said Gaelle Desbordes, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Boston University Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology.
“Overall, these results are consistent with the overarching hypothesis that meditation may result in enduring, beneficial changes in brain function, especially in the area of emotional processing.”
The researchers began the study with the hypothesis that meditation can help control emotional responses.
During meditation, a part of the brain called the amygdala (known for the processing of emotional stimuli) showed decreased activity. However, when the participants were shown images of other people that were either good, bad, or neutral for a practice known as “compassion meditation,” the amygdala was exceptionally responsive.
The subjects were able to focus their attention and greatly reduce their emotional reactions. And over an eight-week period, the participants retained this ability.
Even when they were not engaged in a meditative state, their emotional responses were subdued, and they experienced more compassion for others when faced with disturbing images.
Around the same time, another group at Harvard Medical School (HMS) began to study the effect of meditation on retaining information. Their hypothesis was that people who meditate have more control over alpha rhythm — a brain wave thought to screen out everyday distractions, allowing for more important information to be processed.
“Mindfulness meditation has been reported to enhance numerous mental abilities, including rapid memory recall,” said Catherine Kerr of the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Osher Research Center, both at HMS.
“Our discovery that mindfulness meditators more quickly adjusted the brain wave that screens out distraction could explain their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts.”
Both studies used participants that had no previous experience with meditation.
Over an eight-week period and a 12-week period, both groups showed a marked change in their daily normal brain function, while they were meditating and while they were involved in medial activities.
Some researchers believe that meditation might be the key to help ease off dependency on pharmaceutical drugs.
“The implications extend far beyond meditation,” said Kerr.
“They give us clues about possible ways to help people better regulate a brain rhythm that is deregulated in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other conditions.”
Source: Harvard University
Testosterone Improves Learning, Memory in Older Women
“This is the first large, placebo-controlled study of the effects of testosterone on mental skills in postmenopausal women who are not on estrogen therapy,” said principal investigator Susan Davis, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
“Our study has confirmed our similar findings from two smaller studies in postmenopausal women and suggests that testosterone therapy may protect women against cognitive decline after menopause.”
Menopause has been linked with memory decline because of a decrease in levels of the hormone estrogen.
Yet testosterone also is an important hormone in women because it has a role in sexual desire, bone density and energy while improving mood. In men, studies have shown that testosterone replacement has favorable effects on brain function, according to the researcher.
In this new study, the Australian researchers randomly assigned 92 healthy postmenopausal women who were not receiving estrogen therapy to receive one of two treatments for 26 weeks.
The treatments were a testosterone gel applied daily to the upper arm, or a placebo, an identical-appearing gel containing none of the medication. Neither the women nor the investigators were aware of which gel the women received.
Before treatment and at 12 and 26 weeks of treatment, the women underwent testing of their cognitive function using a computer-based battery of tests designed for people with normal brain function (CogState).
Ninety women completed the study. The researchers noted they found no cognitive differences between the groups before the start of treatment.
After 26 weeks, the women who received testosterone therapy had a statistically significant improvement in verbal learning and memory, according to Davis.
The average score for the testosterone-treated group on a test of how well they recalled words from a list was 1.6 points greater than the placebo group. No differences between the groups were evident for any other cognitive test.
Women receiving testosterone therapy reported no major side effects related to the gel. Their testosterone levels increased with treatment but remained in the normal female range, the researcher noted.
Although further study is needed in more women, Davis said the results are important.
“There is no effective treatment to date to prevent memory decline in women, who are at higher risk of dementia than men,” she said.
Source: The Endocrine Society
Woman thinking photo by shutterstock.
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