[Buddha-l] RE: neuroscience: neural plasticity

[Bill Kish]

S. A. Feite:
>It's a brief publishers review. There was more than one person if 

>this is the study I'm thinking of and it was quite groundbreaking
>for a couple of reasons. One, the EEG signature most often
>associated with samadhi, high amplitude gamma waves, had not been
>observed in a lab setting in a long time (since the 50's). It was
>observed repeatedly in this study. And two, the long term
>meditators in the study actually had signs of samadhi occurring in
>the post-meditation state indicating that they were essentially in
>a continuous state of altered consciousness.

Are you thinking of the work done by Richard Davidson at the 
W. M. Keck Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin?  If so, 
he had a paper published in the November 2004 Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.  I would guess his source(s) of
funding would be mentioned in that publication.  Unfortunately,
Google has not dredged up that particular paper yet, else I would
pass along the URL.

There is also a short article about Davidson's work in a periodical
called "Middle Way" put out by the Buddhist Society in London; the
article is "Meditation Gives the Brain a Change" in the Feb. 2006
volume.  It does not mention anything about how the research was
funded, however.

---------
Bill Kish 


       
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