Meditation Changes Brains

The researchers also tested whether meditation affected participants' immune function. "The measures of immune function were taken by administering, at the end of the eight-week program, the influenza vaccine to all of the participants," Davidson explains. "And we then took blood samples at different points in time after the vaccine had been administered, so that we can quantitatively assess the magnitude of the immune response to the vaccine."
Davidson found three interesting results; first, that there was a significant change in brain activity among those who meditated. "They showed an increase in activation in this left frontal part of the brain, whereas the participants in the control group showed very little change," says Davidson.

The second result was that the influenza vaccine was more effective among those who meditated. And the third result, "which is the most remarkable of all," says Davidson, "is that those individuals in the meditation group who showed the largest increase in this signal in the left frontal part of the brain, those were the individuals who showed the largest boost in immune function in response to the influenza vaccine. So it suggests that although there is variation among the participants of the meditation group in how effective biologically the meditation practice was, those for whom it was most effective in the brain also showed it most effective in the immune system."

The changes appeared even four months after the study. Davidson thinks that means meditation has a lasting effect. "It means that they will be able to deal with negative emotions more effectively and they will have a more hopeful and positive outlook and more positive expectations about the future."

Davidson hopes that scientific studies of this kind will help to establish the benefits of meditation to the mind as well as the body. "We know that the mind does have some influence on bodily function, but precisely what the mechanism is for that is something that is now under intensive scientific scrutiny. Now for the first time we have the tools to begin to examine that using state-of-the-art rigorous science."

Funding for this research came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, and the National Institute of Mental Health.