This time I'll upload a letter of Clemens Bauer, Which makes me think that sometimes, the not-think that leaves us thinking.
Think "Think not"
recent neuroimaging studies have identified several brain regions that are metabolically more active during rest or simple "no thinking "and to be deactivated when you start implementing more demanding tasks as it would be paying attention to an image, a mental calculation or reading among many others. This default network brain basal state or network has been functionally linked to the stream of consciousness or multiple thoughts that occur automatically in the absence of activity directed to an end or purpose, ie during the "rest." In other words, while we are not carried out any specific task and feel that we are not resting or thinking about anything, we are actually thinking of "not thinking" and the brain is equal to or more active than when we are really running a cognitive task applicant.
What implications might this have and you can do to really relax the brain?
In a study at the University of Atlanta, Dr. Pagnoni et (Pagnoni, Cekic, & Guo, 2008) investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI for short in English) if mental training through Zen meditation technique has any effect on the baseline network and if there is some difference As for reaction times during a task of conceptual word rocessing. For this meant that the participants should remain in simplified meditation periods, such as attending to breath, while English words interspersed or just an arrangement of letters without meaning. The task was to maintain the meditative state, broken only when words were presented, and DECD if it was a single or just an arrangement of letters. Zen meditators were compared with at least three years experience in healthy volunteers with no experience in mediatación.
The results showed that professionals in Zen meditation, show a significant reduction in the duration of neuronal activity linked to conceptual processing in the basal state network (fig 1), suggesting that meditative training can foster the ability to control the stream of consciousness or thoughts automatic cascade of semantic associations triggered by a stimulus and, by extension, to voluntarily regulate the flow of spontaneous mental activity.
The results support the hypothesis that regular practice of Zen meditation enhances the capacity of voluntary regulation of spontaneous mental activity or control the stream of consciousness. The meditators showed a BOLD response (Blood Oxygen depend any level) in regions of the basal state network that is related to the semantics of words or conceptual processing, which was characterized by a greater reduction after stimulation compared with control subjects (see Figure 2). One possible explanation given by the researchers for this finding is that the meditators, given its history of practice, had a greater ability to focus attention on the breath after it has processed and responded to stimuli presented, while control subjects maintained the conceptual processing several seconds after the stimulation and found it hard to return to the task of concentration, ie the automatic mental activity stream of consciousness that occurs can not be stopped so easily. It is interesting to note that the left angular gyrus, a region important in conceptual processing (see Figure 2), we can see that the BOLD signal related to the off drops to a level lower than baseline in the post-stimulus period in meditators (red line). This finding may indicate that the active process of regulating the conceptual processing caused by the stimulus and re-focus on breathing, is more developed and more effective in meditators than in control subjects and that they can temporarily take it below the level the normal baseline.
These findings largely indicate that the basal state network, és like other networks in the brain susceptible to such top-down modulations, as shown by this study, tends to be less controllable in normal compared with subjects who have had mental training.
It mentioned that there are several studies and reviews (Buckner, Andrews Hanna, & Schacter, 2008, Greicius, Srivastava, Reiss, & Menon, 2004) that link a network malfunction of the baseline with various diseases such as schizophrenia, autism or Alzheimer's disease as it is believed that the network is critical baseline in cognitive functioning and targeted therapies for the modulation of this network could contribute to the understanding, prevention and treatment of such conditions, precisely regulating the activity within this network baseline.
In most meditation techniques, we aim to obtain a mental control and regulation. It seeks to develop a familiarity with voluntary attention directed by the subject often to breath and / or posture. This cognitive effort, but seems to require more energy, actually dims or turns off the network baseline or spontaneous auto attendant and conceptual processing, it that appears as a fail to make the cognitive effort to pay attention. The net difference in energy consumption is decreased, so there is less brain activity really paying attention to the thought of "not thinking." In other words, we can say that meditation is a training to create a process to the care provided will and thus a network off the ground state, which produces a metabolic state of lower energy consumption at the neuronal level.
The adoption of a stable sitting posture in a quiet environment with the mind directed to the breath voluntarily reduce neuronal activity occurring a real mental rest.
Bibliography
Buckner, RL, Andrews Hanna, JR, & Schacter, DL (2008). The brain's default network. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124 (1), 1-38.
Greicius, MD, Srivastava, G., Reiss, AL, & Menon, V. (2004). Default-mode network activity distinguished Alzheimer's disease from healthy aging: evidence from functional MRI. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101 (13), 4637.
Pagnoni G, Cekic, M., & Guo, Y. (2008). "Thinking about Not-Thinking": Neural Correlates of Conceptual Processing DURING Zen meditation. PLoS One, 3 (9), e3083. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0003083
Finally
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