Author:
Publication: The Straits Times
Date: May 24, 2003
URL: http://www.straitstimes.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,190771,00.html?
Buddhists really are happy, calm
and serene people - at least according to their brain scans.
Using new scanning techniques, neuroscientists
have discovered that certain areas of the brain light up constantly in
Buddhists, and not just when they are meditating, which indicates positive
emotions and good mood.
'We can now hypothesise with some
confidence that those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly
comes across in places such as Dharamsala, India, really are happy,' said
Professor Owen Flanagan of Duke University in North Carolina.
The scanning studies by scientists
at the University of Wisconsin at Madison showed activity in the left prefrontal
lobes of experienced Buddhist practitioners. The area is linked to positive
emotions, self-control and temperament.
Other research by Dr Paul Ekman
of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center suggests that
meditation and mindfulness can tame the amygdala, an area of the brain
which is the hub of fear memory.
Dr Ekman discovered that experienced
practitioners of the faith who meditate regularly were less likely to be
shocked, flustered, surprised or as angry as other people.
Prof Flanagan believes that if the
findings of the studies can be confirmed, they could be of major importance.
'The most reasonable hypothesis
is that there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results
in the kind of happiness we all seek,' he said in a report in New Scientist
magazine.
-- Reuters