Saying 'Om' Instead of 'Ow'

Abstract

![Figure][1] CREDIT: ROBERT WALLIS/CORBIS The pain-relieving benefits of meditation aren't merely in people's minds but in their brains, too, according to a new study. Neuroscientists at the University of Montreal in Canada turned up the heat on a metal cube applied to the legs of 17 male and female Zen meditation practitioners between the ages of 22 and 57, and 18 matched controls. On average, the meditators, who had between 2 and 30 years of daily practice, tolerated an extra 2°C before saying they were in moderate pain. The team then took MRI scans of the subjects and measured the thickness of certain pain-processing regions in the cerebral cortex. The meditators had greater thickness in a region of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), an area thought to mediate pain's unpleasantness. Thicker ACCs were also correlated with less sensitivity to pain in the leg test, the team reported last month in the journal Emotion . The study's lead author, Joshua Grant, says that although physical activities are known to change brains, “I don't know if it's ever been shown that a mental activity—placing your attention on something”—can cause physical changes in that organ. The study “demonstrates convincingly the impact of meditation practice on pain perception,” says Bogdan Draganksi, a neuroscientist at University College London. “The idea of training the ‘emotional muscle’ … is very tempting.” [1]: pending:yes