Meditation & the Brain
Harvard ยืนยัน! MRI เห็นชัด: สมาธิ 8 สัปดาห์ เปลี่ยนสมองจริง
Summary
A 2005 study found differences between the brains of long-term meditators and non-meditators, but could not say which way the causation ran.
The 2011 study solved that by scanning the same people before and after an eight-week MBSR course.
The mechanism is neuroplasticity: the brain restructures around whatever is repeatedly used.
Key points
The study design is the point
Comparing the same people before and after answers the objection that such brains simply chose to meditate.
Eight weeks is a reachable interval
This is not the fruit of decades of practice but something ordinary people can actually do.
The events do not change; the response does
What the research shows is less stress from the reaction, not from an easier life.
MBSR is not dhamma practice
It is a clinical programme that borrowed the method — worth separating before drawing conclusions about the teaching.