fact melts away the fear…
Center for Investigating Healthy Minds
by meditative - June 15th, 2011.Filed under: Mindful News, Events, & Resources.
The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, includes a diverse mix of scientists from several different disciplines as well as scholars in the humanities. Their mutual focus on the study of healthy qualities of mind is aided by highly sophisticated instrumentation housed in the university’s Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior.
The Center uses the plural “healthy minds” to convey that there are many ways in which to have a healthy mind, and it is dedicated to studying this diversity. The word “investigating” is used since we do not yet know exactly what constitutes healthy qualities of mind. Part of the Center’s mission is to conduct research explicitly examining this question.
The Center is one of the world’s leading scientific groups dedicated to the study of how contemplative practices might play a useful role in changing the mind in a positive manner. If these practices are to gain widespread acceptance in such fields as science, medicine, and education, it is imperative to develop an understanding of how meditation affects the brain. This work can provide novel insights into relations between brain and body since some research is beginning to suggest that contemplative practice may be potentially helpful for some neurological, psychiatric, and health conditions including attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, depression, hypertension, and asthma. By studying how contemplative practices change both the brain and peripheral biology (biology below the neck) the connection between the brain and certain peripheral biological functions (e.g., lung function) and physical diseases (e.g., asthma) can be ascertained.
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