Can meditation make you more creative?

October 31, 20141 Comment

Certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking even if you are not a practitioner. This is the outcome of a study by cognitive psychologist Lorenza Colzato and her fellow researchers at Leiden University and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, published in Mindfulness.

Long-lasting influence
The study is a clear indication that you don’t need to be an experienced meditator to profit more from meditation. The findings support the belief that meditation can have a long-lasting influence on human cognition, including how we conceive new ideas. Besides experienced meditators, also novices may profit from meditation.

Different techniques, different effects
But the results demonstrate that not all forms of meditation have the same effect on creativity. Test persons performed better in divergent thinking (= thinking up as many possible solutions for a given problem) after Open Monitoring meditation (= being receptive to every thought and sensation). The researchers did not see this effect on divergent thinking after Focused Attention meditation (=focusing on a particular thought or object.)

Setup of the study
40 individuals participated in this study, who had to meditate for 25 minutes before doing their thinking tasks. There were both experienced mediators and people who never meditated before. The study investigated the influences of different types of meditative techniques on the two main ingredients of creativity:

Divergent thinking
Allows for many new ideas to be generated. It is measured using the so-called Alternate Uses Task method where participants are required to think up as many uses as possible for a particular object, such as a pen.

Convergent thinking
Convergent thinking, on the other hand, is a process whereby one possible solution for a particular problem is generated. This method is measured using the Remote Associates Task method, where three unrelated words are presented to the participants, words such as ‘time’, ‘hair’ and ‘stretch’. The participants are then asked to identify the common link: in this case, ‘long’.

Source: Medical News Today

Recreating The Brain

October 30, 2014Leave a comment

Can we replicate basic brain functions? In this talk, computational neuroscientist and Harvard Professor, David Cox reveals how vision works in the brain and explains how his research can help pave the way towards prosthetics that restore or enhance brain function, as well as enabling the design of computer algorithms that “see” like we do.

Like Valium and Oxycontin, without the Side Effects

October 20, 2014Leave a comment

A Buddhist monk—this one with a doctorate in cell biology—has teamed with two prominent neuroscientists to present the latest findings on what meditation does to the brain and how those changes to neural circuits have some of the trappings of what might be labeled a perfect drug—Prozac-like muting of depression symptoms or prophylaxis against PTSD (just two on the list). In this video Richard Davidson, Ph.D., presents their research at Stanford University in a talk entitled, The Emergence of Contemplative Neuroscience.

How the human brain works

October 18, 2014Leave a comment

An animated tour around the brain.

What Happens Inside The Musician’s Brain?

October 15, 2014Leave a comment

When musicians play, what is happening inside their brains? Scientists at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute for Human Development have discovered that while performing together, their neurological activity goes into a kind of synchronization mode – almost as though they were connected by a wireless network.

Addiction: What The Mind Hungers For

October 6, 2014Leave a comment

Psychiatrist Nora Volkow, chemist Kim Janda, and neuroscientists Eric Nestler and Amir Levine explain the latest thinking in the science of addiction.

A Neural Portrait Of The Human Mind

October 5, 2014Leave a comment

Brain imaging pioneer Nancy Kanwisher, who uses fMRI scans to see activity in brain regions (often her own), shares what she and her colleagues have learned: The brain is made up of both highly specialized components and general-purpose “machinery.” Another surprise: There’s so much left to learn.

Your Brain On Improv

October 4, 2014Leave a comment

What happens in the brain during musical improv? Researcher Charles Limb scanned the brains of jazz musicians to find out.

About Charles Limb

Dr. Charles Limb is an Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery, as well as faculty at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. He combines his two passions to study the way the brain creates and perceives music. He’s a hearing specialist and surgeon at Johns Hopkins who performs cochlear implantations. In his free time, he plays sax, piano and bass.

In search of a better understanding of how the mind processes complex auditory stimuli such as music, Dr. Limb has been working with Dr. Allen Braun to look at the brains of improvising musicians and study what parts of the brain are involved when a musician is really in the groove.

Mixed Feelings: Paul Bach-y-Rita and Neuroplasticity

September 28, 2014Leave a comment

A short 10 minute story by Wired Science called ‘Mixed Feelings’ showcasing the work of the late Paul Bach-y-Rita, an American neuroscientist whose most notable work was in the field of neuroplasticity. Bach-y-Rita’s revolutionary work sought to rewire the brain so that one sense could potentially compensate for another that was damaged or absent; working to help the blind to acquire a certain form of ‘sight’ using the sense of touch, and also helping ‘wobblers’, people with damaged vestibular function, so their brains might create a new mode for having balance.

Saving Brains, A Grand Challenge

September 24, 20141 Comment

Food for thought about investing in the future of our children, in this video by Dr. Mike Evans, founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital.