Richard Davidson, one of the world's foremost brain scientists and named in TIME Magazine's as one of the world's top 100 most influential people, has done considerable research on the effect of mindfulness practices on the brain. He specializes in research on brain function related to emotion, both in normal individuals and those with, or at risk of, depression and anxiety.
In his research on brain function in anxiety he noted:
The functional M.R.I. images reveal that when people are emotionally distressed -- anxious, angry, depressed -- the most active sites in the brain are circuitry converging on the amygdala, part of the brain's emotional centers, and the right prefrontal cortex, a brain region important for the hypervigilance typical of people under stress.
By contrast, when people are in positive moods -- upbeat, enthusiastic and energized -- those sites are quiet, with the heightened activity in the left prefrontal cortex.
By taking readings on hundreds of people, Davidson established a bell curve distribution, with most people in the middle, having a mix of good and bad moods. Those relatively few people who are farthest to the right are most likely to have a clinical depression or anxiety disorder over the course of their lives. For those lucky few farthest to the left, troubling moods are rare and recovery from them is rapid....
Davidson found that some Tibetan monks who had meditated for many years had the most extreme values to the left of all the people that he studied.
In research on meditators versus non-meditators, he noted significant increases in left-sided anterior activation in the meditators compared with the nonmeditators, the pattern previously associated with positive affect. He found that regular mindfulness practice over a period of just 8 weeks significantly increased immune system functioning and additionally increased left-brain activity (furthermore, increases in the left-brain functioning directly mediated the increases in immune system functioning.
The overall results from Davidson's mindfulness research provides evidence for the use of meditative practices to reduce negative mood states - and furthermore shows that positive mood states are more likely to become a part of a person's natural state if they meditate regularly.
