The Promise of Self-Directed Neuroplasticity

The Promise of
Self-Directed Neuroplasticity

Australian Association of
Buddhist Counsellors and Psychotherapists
August 10, 2011

Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
The Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom
www.WiseBrain.org www.RickHanson.net 1

drrh@comcast.net

Topics

! Perspectives

! Self-directed neuroplasticity

! Taking in the good

! Feeling cared about

2

Common - and Fertile - Ground

Neuroscience Psychology

Contemplative Practice

4

The history of science is rich in the example
of the fruitfulness of bringing
two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas,
developed in separate contexts
for the pursuit of new truth,
into touch with one another.

J. Robert Oppenheimer
5

When the facts change,
I change my mind, sir.

What do you do?

John Maynard Keynes

6

The Connectome - 2

10
Hagmann, et al., 2008, PLoS Biology, 6:1479-1493

Your Brain: The Technical Specs
! Size:
! 3 pounds of tofu-like tissue
! 1.1 trillion brain cells
! 100 billion “gray matter" neurons

! Activity:
! Always on 24/7/365 - Instant access to information on demand
! 20-25% of blood flow, oxygen, and glucose

! Speed:
! Neurons firing around 5 to 50 times a second (or faster)
! Signals crossing your brain in a tenth of a second

! Connectivity:
! Typical neuron makes ~ 5000 connections with other neurons:
~ 500 trillion synapses
11

Self-Directed Neuroplasticity

12

Fact #1
As your brain changes, your mind changes.

13

Ways That Brain Can Change Mind

! For better:
! A little caffeine: more alertness
! Thicker insula: more self-awareness, empathy
! More left prefrontal activation: more happiness

! For worse:
! Intoxication; imbalances in neurotransmitters
! Concussion, stroke, tumor, Alzheimer’s
! Cortisol-based shrinkage of hippocampus: less
capacity for contextual memory 14

Fact #2
As your mind changes, your brain changes.

Immaterial mental activity maps to material neural
activity.

This produces temporary changes in your brain and
lasting ones.

Temporary changes include:
! Alterations in brainwaves (= changes in the firing patterns of
synchronized neurons)
! Increased or decreased use of oxygen and glucose 15

! Ebbs and flows of neurochemicals

Christian Nuns, Recalling a
Profound Spiritual Experience

17

Beauregard, et al., Neuroscience Letters, 9/25/06

Mind Changes Brain in Lasting Ways

! What flows through the mind sculpts your brain.
Immaterial experience leaves material traces behind.

! Increased blood/nutrient flow to active regions

! Altered epigenetics (gene expression)

! “Neurons that fire together wire together.”
! Increasing excitability of active neurons
! Strengthening existing synapses
! Building new synapses; thickening cortex
! Neuronal “pruning” - “use it or lose it” 18

Lazar, et al. 2005.
Meditation
experience is
associated
with increased
cortical thickness.
Neuroreport, 16,
1893-1897.

19

Honoring Experience

One’s experience matters.

Both for how it feels in the moment and for the
lasting residues it leaves behind, woven into
the fabric of a person’s brain and being.

20

Fact #3

You can use your mind
to change your brain
to change your mind for the better.

This is self-directed neuroplasticity.

How to do this, in skillful ways? 21

Neuroplasticity in Context

! Neuroplasticity is not breaking news. It’s been long
presumed that mental activity changed neural
structure: what else is learning?

! The news is in how the mind changes the brain.

! Most neuroplasticity is incremental, not dramatic.

! Neuroplasticity is ethically neutral.

22

Cultivating Inner Resources

23

The Importance of Inner Resources

! Examples:
! Freud’s “positive introjects”
! Internalization of “corrective emotional
experiences” during psychotherapy
! “Learned optimism”

! Benefits
! Increase positive emotions: many physical and
mental health benefits
! Improve self-soothing
! Improve outlook on world, self, and future
24
! Increase resilience, determination

Learning and Memory
! The sculpting of the brain by experience is memory:
! Explicit - Personal recollections; semantic memory
! Implicit - Bodily states; emotional residues; “views”
(expectations, object relations, perspectives); behavioral
repertoire and inclinations; what it feels like to be “me”

! Implicit memory is much larger than explicit memory.
Resources are embedded mainly in implicit memory.

! Therefore, the key target is implicit memory. So what
matters most is not the explicit recollection of positive
events but the implicit emotional residue of positive
experiences. 25

Self-Goodwill
! Moral teachings tell us to be compassionate and kind toward all
beings. And that whatever we do to the world affects us, and
whatever we do to ourselves affects the world.

! You are one of the “all beings!” And kindness to yourself
benefits the world, while hurting yourself harms the world.

! It’s a general moral principle that the more power you have over
someone, the greater your duty is to use that power wisely.
Well, who is the one person in the world you have the greatest
power over? It’s your future self. You hold that life in your hands,
and what it will be depends on how you care for it.

! Consider yourself as an innocent child, as deserving of care and
happiness as any other. 26

“Anthem”

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in

Leonard Cohen

27

If one going down into a river,
swollen and swiftly flowing,
is carried away by the current --
how can one help others across?

The Buddha

28

Just having positive experiences is not enough.

They pass through the brain like water through a sieve, while
negative experiences are caught.

We need to engage positive experiences actively to weave them into
the brain.

29

How to Take in the Good

1. Look for positive facts, and let them become positive
experiences.

2. Savor the positive experience:
! Sustain it for 10-20-30 seconds.
! Feel it in your body and emotions.
! Intensify it.

3. Sense and intend that the positive experience is
soaking into your brain and body - registering deeply
in emotional memory. 30

Why It’s Good to Take in the Good
! Rights an unfair imbalance, given the negativity bias

! Gives oneself today the caring and support one should have
received as a child, but perhaps didn’t get in full measure; an
inherent, implicit benefit

! Increases positive resources, such as:
! Postive emotions
! Capacity to manage stress and negative experiences

! Can help bring in missing “supplies” (e.g., love, strength, worth)

! Can help painful, even traumatic experiences
31

Potential Synergies of TIG and MBSR

! Improved mindfulness from MBSR enhances TIG.

! TIG increases general resources for MBSR (e.g., heighten the
PNS activation that promotes stable attention).

! TIG increases specific factors of MBSR (e.g., self-acceptance,
self-compassion, tolerance of negative affect)

! TIG heightens internalization of key MBSR experiences:
! The sense of stable mindfulness itself
! Confidence that awareness itself is not in pain, upset, etc.
! Presence of supportive others (e.g., MBSR groups)
! Peacefulness of realizing that experiences come and go
32

Feeling Stronger and Safer
! Be mindful of an experience of strength (e.g., physical
challenge, standing up for someone).

! Staying grounded in strength, let things come to you without
shaking your roots, like a mighty tree in a storm.

! Be mindful of:
! Protections (e.g., being in a safe place, imagining a shield)
! People who care about you
! Resources inside and outside you

! Let yourself feel as safe as you reasonably can:
! Noticing any anxiety about feeling safer
! Feeling more relaxed, tranquil, peaceful 33

! Releasing bracing, guardedness, vigilance

Outstanding behavior,
blameless action,
open hands to all,
and selﬂess giving:

This is a blessing supreme.

The Buddha
34

Great Books
See www.RickHanson.net for other great books.

! Austin, J. 2009. Selfless Insight. MIT Press.
! Begley. S. 2007. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. Ballantine.
! Carter, C. 2010. Raising Happiness. Ballantine.
! Hanson, R. (with R. Mendius). 2009. Buddha’s Brain: The Practical
Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom. New Harbinger.
! Johnson, S. 2005. Mind Wide Open. Scribner.
! Keltner, D. 2009. Born to Be Good. Norton.
! Kornfield, J. 2009. The Wise Heart. Bantam.
! LeDoux, J. 2003. Synaptic Self. Penguin.
! Linden, D. 2008. The Accidental Mind. Belknap.
! Sapolsky, R. 2004. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Holt.
! Siegel, D. 2007. The Mindful Brain. Norton.
! Thompson, E. 2007. Mind in Life. Belknap.

35

Key Papers - 1
See www.RickHanson.net for other scientific papers.

! Atmanspacher, H. & Graben, P. 2007. Contextual emergence of mental
states from neurodynamics. Chaos & Complexity Letters, 2:151-168.

! Baumeister, R., Bratlavsky, E., Finkenauer, C. & Vohs, K. 2001. Bad is
stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5:323-370.

! Braver, T. & Cohen, J. 2000. On the control of control: The role of
dopamine in regulating prefrontal function and working memory; in
Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance XVIII.
Monsel, S. & Driver, J. (eds.). MIT Press.

! Carter, O.L., Callistemon, C., Ungerer, Y., Liu, G.B., & Pettigrew, J.D.
2005. Meditation skills of Buddhist monks yield clues to brain's
regulation of attention. Current Biology. 15:412-413. 36

Key Papers - 2
! Davidson, R.J. 2004. Well-being and affective style: neural substrates and
biobehavioural correlates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
359:1395-1411.

! Farb, N.A.S., Segal, Z.V., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., Fatima, Z., and
Anderson, A.K. 2007. Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals
distinct neural modes of self-reflection. SCAN, 2, 313-322.

! Gillihan, S.J. & Farah, M.J. 2005. Is self special? A critical review of evidence
from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Psychological
Bulletin, 131:76-97.

! Hagmann, P., Cammoun, L., Gigandet, X., Meuli, R., Honey, C.J., Wedeen, V.J.,
& Sporns, O. 2008. Mapping the structural core of human cerebral cortex. PLoS
Biology. 6:1479-1493.

! Hanson, R. 2008. Seven facts about the brain that incline the mind to joy. In
Measuring the immeasurable: The scientific case for spirituality. Sounds True. 37

Key Papers - 3
! Lazar, S., Kerr, C., Wasserman, R., Gray, J., Greve, D., Treadway, M.,
McGarvey, M., Quinn, B., Dusek, J., Benson, H., Rauch, S., Moore, C., & Fischl,
B. 2005. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness.
Neuroreport. 16:1893-1897.

! Lewis, M.D. & Todd, R.M. 2007. The self-regulating brain: Cortical-subcortical
feedback and the development of intelligent action. Cognitive Development,
22:406-430.

! Lieberman, M.D. & Eisenberger, N.I. 2009. Pains and pleasures of social life.
Science. 323:890-891.

! Lutz, A., Greischar, L., Rawlings, N., Ricard, M. and Davidson, R. 2004. Long-
term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental
practice. PNAS. 101:16369-16373.

! Lutz, A., Slager, H.A., Dunne, J.D., & Davidson, R. J. 2008. Attention regulation
and monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 12:163-169. 38

Key Papers - 4
! Rozin, P. & Royzman, E.B. 2001. Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and
contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5:296-320.

! Takahashi, H., Kato, M., Matsuura, M., Mobbs, D., Suhara, T., & Okubo, Y.
2009. When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: Neural correlates of
envy and schadenfreude. Science, 323:937-939.

! Tang, Y.-Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D.,
Rothbart, M.K., Fan, M., & Posner, M. 2007. Short-term meditation training
improves attention and self-regulation. PNAS, 104:17152-17156.

! Thompson, E. & Varela F.J. 2001. Radical embodiment: Neural dynamics and
consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5:418-425.

! Walsh, R. & Shapiro, S. L. 2006. The meeting of meditative disciplines and
Western psychology: A mutually enriching dialogue. American Psychologist,
61:227-239.
39

Where to Find Rick Hanson Online

http://www.youtube.com/BuddhasBrain
http://www.facebook.com/BuddhasBrain

w

www.RickHanson.net
www.WiseBrain.org 40

The Promise of Self-Directed Neuroplasticity

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