Dr. Newberg, thank you for being with us today. Can you please explain the source of your interests at the intersection of brain research and spirituality?

Since I was a kid, I had a keen interest in spiritual practice. I always wondered how spirituality and religion affect us, and over time I came to appreciate how science can help us explore and understand the world around us, including why we humans care about spiritual practices. This, of course, led me to be particularly interested in brain research.

During medical school I was particularly attracted by the problem of consciousness. I was fortunate to meet researcher Dr. Eugene D'Aquili in the early 1990s, who had been doing much research on religious practices effect on brain since the 1970s. Through him I came to see that brain imaging can provide a fascinating window into the brain.

Can we define religion and spirituality -which sound to me as very different brain processes-, and why learning about them may be helpful from a purely secular, scientific point of view?

Good point, definitions matter, since different people may be searching for God in different ways. I view being religious as participating in organized rituals and shared beliefs, such as going to church. Being spiritual, on the other hand, is more of an individual practice, whether we call it meditation, or relaxation, or prayer, aimed at expanding the self, developing a sense of oneness with the universe.

What is happening is that specific practices that have traditionally been associated with religious and spiritual contexts may also be very useful from a mainstream, secular, health point of view, beyond those contexts. Scientists are researching, for example, what elements of meditation may help manage stress and improve memory. How breathing and meditation techniques can contribute to health and wellness. For example, my lab is now conducting a study where 15 older adults with memory problems are practicing Kirtan Kriya meditation during 8 weeks, and we have found very promising preliminary outcomes in terms of the impact on brain function. This work is being funded by the Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation, but we have submitted a grant request to the National Institute of Health as well.

Can you give an overview of the benefits of meditation, including Richard Davidson's studies on mindfulness meditation?

There are many types of meditation - and we each are researching different practices. Which of course share some common elements, but are different in nature. Dr. Davidson has access to the Dalai Lama and many Buddhist practitioners, so much of his research centers on mindfulness meditation. We have easier access to Franciscan monks and to practitioners of Kirtan Kriya meditation.

At its core, meditation is an active process that requires alertness and attention, which explains why we often find increased brain activity in frontal lobes during practice. Usually you need to focus on something - a mantra, a visual or verbal prompt- while you monitor breathing.

A variety of studies have already shown the stress management benefits of meditation, resulting in what is often called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. What we are researching now is what are the cognitive - attention, memory- benefits? It is clear that memory depends on attention and the ability to screen out distractions - so we want to measure the effect of meditation on the brain, both structurally and functionally.

To measure the brain activation patterns we have been using SPECT imaging, which involves injecting small amounts of radioactive tracers in volunteers, and helps us get a more view of what happens during practice (fMRI is much more noisy).

To measure functional benefits we use the typical batteries of neuropsychology testing.

If there is a growing body of evidence behind the health and cognitive benefits of meditation - what is preventing a more widespread adoption of the practice, perhaps in ways similar to yoga, which is now pretty much a mainstream activity?

Well, the reality is that meditation requires practice and dedication. It is not an easy fix. And some of the best-researched meditation techniques, such as mindfulness meditation, are very intensive. You need a trained facilitator. You need to stick to the practice.

In fact, that's why our ongoing research focused on a much easier to teach and practice technique. We want to see if people can practice on their own, at home, a few minutes a day for a few weeks.

The other problem is that this is not a standardized practice, so there is a lot of confusion: many different meditation techniques, with different sets of priorities and styles.

My advice for interested people would be to look for something simple, easy to try first, ensuring the practice is compatible with one's beliefs and goals. You need to match practice with need: understand the specific goals you have in mind, your schedule and lifestyle, and find something practical. Otherwise, you will not stick to it (similar to people who never show up at the health club despite paying fees).

New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote two very thought-provoking articles, one on the Cognitive Age we are living in, another on the Neural Buddhists, where he quotes your work. What is the big picture, the main implications for society from your research?

I believe Philosophy complements Science, and all of us human beings would benefit from spiritual practices to achieve higher state of being, develop compassion, increase awareness, in ways compatible with any religious or secular beliefs. This is the main theme of my upcoming book, How God Changes Brain (to be published on March 2009): how we develop a shared knowledge of our common biology, and celebrate the differences which are based on our specific contexts. We are spiritual and social beings.

From an education point of view, I believe schools will need to recognize that rote learning is not enough, and add to the mix practices to improve cognition, and manage stress and relationships.

That spiritual angle may prove controversial in a number of scientific quarters. What would, for example, say to biologist Richard Dawkins?

I'd tell him that we all view the world through the lens of our brains, reflecting our cultural, social, and personal background. His view is based on his lens. Same as mine. All of us have a belief system. His is not particularly more accurate than everybody else's.

We shouldn't throw out the baby with bathwater. I don't think religion is a black & white matter: yes, fundamentalism is a problem, as is rejecting data and ignoring scientific findings. But there are also good elements: the motivation to care about human beings, to develop compassion, to perfect ourselves and our world.

Dr. Newberg, thank you for your time today.

My pleasure.

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You may enjoy more interviews with leading scientists by checking out our Neuroscience Interview Series.

McDonnell Foundation grant harnesses cognitive science to improve student learning (press release)

- "Using what cognitive psychologists are discovering in the laboratory to improve learning in the classroom is the goal of a $6.47 million collaborative activity grant to Washington University from the James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF)."

- "The aim of the grant is to take the knowledge that cognitive psychologists have gained about learning and memory from laboratory experimentation and to develop techniques to improve learning in the classrooms," said Henry L. "Roddy" Roediger III, Ph.D., principal investigator on the grant and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences.

Comment: this is great news, but it would be even better would publishers be the ones developing these new techniques and curriculum - it is time to start moving beyond a purely content-based approach and introduce the evaluation and enhancement of what we can call "cognitive functions for life".

When: Thursday December 11th, from 12:00 to 1:00 pm Pacific Time. The same webinar will be repeated on Thursday December 18th, from 9:00 to 10:00 pm Pacific Time.

The Top 10 Cognitive Fitness Events that will be discussed include:

1) February: Dakim secures a $10.6m investment from Galen Partners. Jack LaLanne becomes spokesperson.
2) April: The Government of Ontario, Canada, invests $10m in Baycrest to develop and commercialize cognitive fitness technologies.
3) April: University of Michigan researchers reveal in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences how computerized working memory training can generalize and improve fluid intelligence in healthy adults.
4) May: Humana unveils Games for Health initiatives, not renewing its agreement with Posit Science.
5) June: The US Army launches a new policy requiring cognitive screenings of all soldiers before deployment (in order to better diagnose potential brain-based disorders such as PTSD and TBI upon return).
6) June: Lumos Labs secures $3m investment from FirstMark Capital and Norwest Venture Partners.
7) July: health insurer OptumHealth announces a 3-year, $18m agreement with Brain Resource to offer web-based cognitive assessments to inform clinical diagnostics and treatments.
8) August: CogniFit secures $5m from Milk Capital.
9) September: The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 is signed into law.
10) October: Allstate launches a large-scale research project to measure the impact of Posit Science InSight on driver safety for adults aged 50-75.

Context: The market for software applications that can help assess and enhance cognitive functions (Cognitive Fitness) is rapidly growing, as outlined in SharpBrains’ report The State of the Brain Fitness Software Market 2008 (see Market Report). Published in March of this year, the report estimates that Brain Fitness market revenues grew from $100m in 2005 to $225m in 2007, in the US alone. Important developments during 2008 underscore the solid fundamentals for the continued growth of this category: public policy initiatives, wide scale cognitive assessments, multiple venture capital investments, major initiatives by insurance companies, and new published research. SharpBrains forecasts the market to grow above $2b by 2015.

Fees: This webinar costs $350. You can click Here to learn more and register. Free for SharpBrains’ contributors, Premium Research Circle members, reporters and fellow bloggers.

afernandez at sharpbrains dot com

Thank you!

MetaCarnival: Volume One, Number 2

The next edition will be hosted by Bertalan at ScienceRoll on December 29th.

- "We even elevate such equilibrium to the superhuman: calm, as applied to No Drama Obama, often comes linked to the modifier “preternatural.”

- "But the calm temperament is not so superhuman, nor is it entirely the gift of the chosen few. It can be cultivated, even as the world cleaves around us."

- "So how do we get there without a steady diet of beta blockers and Xanax? Calm, per se, doesn’t appear in the taxonomy of those who study personality and temperament."

As the article later discloses, this ability is often called "emotional self-regulation" by cognitive scientists, and its development can assisted with tools such as meditation, cognitive therapy and biofeedback.

Perhaps one day this will be part of everybody's school curriculum and leadership programs?

The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory

The title was first released in Sweden with great success, and our co-founder Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg gave a Foreword to the new US edition.

Dr. Klingberg will be writing an essay for SharpBrains readers soon, so we can discuss the importance of this topic and his work in depth. Let me now link to two thought-provoking reviews of the book:

Attention Must Be Paid (Inside Higher Ed)

- "The weak link in the information age seems to be our human hard-wiring. So one gathers from The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory (Oxford University Press) by Torkel Klingberg, who is a professor of developmental cognitive neuroscience at the Stockholm Brain Institute. A review of recent research on how attention and memory actually function within our gray matter, it is a work of scientific popularization rather than a handbook on how to minimize the cognitive drain of distraction."

- "To simplify Klingberg’s already pared-down analysis, we can distinguish between two kinds of attention. One is controlled attention: the directed effort to apply one’s concentration to a particular task. The other is stimulus-driven attention, which is an involuntary response to something happening in the environment. (You can tune out the conversations going on around you in a restaurant. But if a waiter drops a tray full of dishes, it is going to impose itself on your awareness.)"

- "Klingberg reports that a two-year study in his lab showed that it was possible to increase working-memory capacity: “children who had done a certain type of computerized memory task, such as remembering positions in a four-by-four grid and clicking a mouse button, improved at other, noncomputerized types of working memory too.... We had shown that the systems are not static and that the limits of working memory capacity can be stretched.”

Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information (Media Channel)

- "Acquiring new information requires particularly focused attention, which includes the ability to ignore distractions. In order to absorb the information contained in a CNN newscast, for example, we must not only direct our attention to the person talking, but also filter out the running headlines, news updates, and financial ticker on the lower part of the screen. Torkel Klingberg, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Karolinska Institute in Sweden and author of The Overflowing Brain, puts it simply: “If we do not focus our attention on something, we will not remember it.” In other words, attention is a critical component of learning."

- "Michael Posner, a researcher who has dedicated his career to studying attention and a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Oregon, explains attention as a system of three networks—alerting, orienting, and executive. Alerting refers to the state of wakefulness necessary to attend to information, while orienting is the process by which we respond to stimuli, such as movement, sound, or noise. Executive attention is the highest-order network, the one that we have conscious control over. If we are trying to study for a test or read a novel, we use it to direct and maintain our focus, as well as to suppress our reaction to competing stimuli like the din of a nearby conversation or television."

The book: The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of Working Memory

For interviews with Torkel Klingberg, Michael Posner and other leading scientists, check out our Neuroscience Interview Series.

Have a great Day.

- The SharpBrains Team

Thank you for your interest, attention and participation in our SharpBrains community. As always, we appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Summit of the Global Agenda

How can we persuade business leaders, policy-makers and researchers of the urgency to develop and promote an integrated "Healthy Living" agenda focused on maintaining lifelong physical and cognitive health, vs. the usual mindset focused on dealing with specific diseases and problems once they arise?

In The Future of the Aging Society: Burden or Human Capital?, I summarize some of the key themes discussed at the World Economic Forum event in Dubai on November 7-9th. The world is aging - and in healthier ways. But our healthcare and retirement systems are on track to go bankrupt - their premises are outdated. The current disease-based research agenda compounds the problem. Solutions? 1) Promote Healthy Lifestyles that help Maintain Physical and Cognitive Functional Abilities, 2) Redesign Environments to Foster Health, Engagement and Financial Security, 3) Develop an Integrated Healthy Living & Aging Research Agenda. Specifically, we could work with the UN and Global 2000 companies to move forward a new agenda.

Planet Earth 2.0: A New Operating System: Imagine seeing a top sheik in Dubai, wrapped in traditional Arab clothing, exclaim “Yes We Can” (a la Obama) in front of the 800 global experts, adding that “we build the future with our own hands”. Some of the attendants of the World Economic Forum's Summit of the Global Agenda urged us to “reboot” the system. More than a "reboot", we may have to upgrade to a new global "Yes We Can" operating system.

Brain Fitness Research

Neuroplasticity and the Brain That Changes Itself: Laurie Bartels reviews the excellent book by Norman Doidge, explaining that "the neuroscience behind Doidge’s book involves neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to rewire itself. This means that the brain – our intelligence – is not something fixed in concrete but rather a changing, learning entity."

Can We Pick Your Brain re: Cognitive Assessments?: In our view, a critical component in the maturity of the brain fitness market will be the availability of inexpensive, valid and reliable objective cognitive assessments,  to help measure how our brain functions change over time and identify priorities for targeted improvements. Dr. Joshua Steinerman asks if you would be up for them?

Use It (Properly) or Lose It

Physical and mental exercise to prevent cognitive decline: The American Medical News, a weekly newspaper for physicians published by the American Medical Association, just published an excellent article on the importance of physical and mental exercise. We are very happy to see efforts like these to train physicians and health professionals in general,  given that most of them were trained under a very different understanding of the brain than the one we have today.

Brain Fitness 2: Sight & Sound: PBS recently announced the second installment of their popular Brain Fitness Program show, to start airing soon.

MetaCarnival #1: a conversation across the blogosphere: We often insist on "Novelty, Variety and Challenge" as key ingredients for good "brain exercise". There are many ways to mix those ingredients - you may enjoy this one, the first interdisciplinary gathering of blogs and blog carnivals covering health, science, anthropology, general advice and more.

Top 15 Brain Teasers and Games for Mental Exercise: Over the last 2 years we have published close to 100 puzzles, teasers, riddles, and every kind of mental exercise (without counting our in-depth interviews with top neuroscientists). Which ones have proven most stimulating for you. Let us know. Here is a selection of our Top 15 teasers.

Final Details

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues if you haven't done so already.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has just released a user-friendly publication titled Neuroscience Core Concepts, aimed at helping educators and the general public learn more about the brain.

Description: "Neuroscience Core Concepts offer fundamental principles that one should know about the brain and nervous system, the most complex living structure known in the universe. They are a practical resource about:

• - How your brain works and how it is formed.
• - How it guides you through the changes in life.
• - Why it is important to increase understanding of the brain."

You will enjoy reading the web page explaining in detail 8 Neuroscience Core Concepts:

1| The brain is the body’s most complex organ.

2| Neurons communicate using both electrical and chemical signals.

3| Genetically determined circuits are the foundation of the nervous system.

4| Life experiences change the nervous system.

5| Intelligence arises as the brain reasons, plans, and solves problems.

6| The brain makes it possible to communicate knowledge through language.

7| The human brain endows us with a natural curiosity to understand how the world works.

8| Fundamental discoveries promote healthy living and treatment of disease.

Page: Neuroscience Core Concepts

You can also Download Neuroscience Core Concepts (PDF, 6 MB), and educators can request a free hardcopy by emailing education@sfn.org.