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<p>Below is the abstract from a study published in <em>Nature</em> magazine in 1982 by Herbert Benson and others on the Tibetan yogic practice of "inner heat" or Tummo (Tibetan: gtum mo). This was one of the first scientific studies which focused on the physiologic changes which accompany this practice. (Zach Rowinski 2005-01-11)</p>
<p><strong>Author's Abstract:</strong> Since meditative practices are associated with changes that are consistent with decreased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, it is conceivable that measurable body temperature changes accompany advanced meditative states. With the help of H.H. the Dalai Lama, we have investigated such a possibility on three practitioners of the advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditational practice known as gTum-mo (heat) yoga living in Upper Dharamsala, India. We report here that in a study performed there in February 1981, we found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3?C.</p>
<p>Welcome this first and most comprehensive guide to Tibet's ancient integrative healing system-one of the world's oldest forms. The Book of Tibetan Medicine provides a thorough overview of the origins and practices of this holistic approach and explains how it can contribute to maintaining overall health and happiness. You will learn how to balance body, mind, and spirit through diet, behavior, yoga, herbalism, acupuncture, Buddhist relaxation techniques, and medicines derived from natural sources. By taking an especially in-depth look at contemporary ailments-including stress and allergies-this highly accessible and lushly illustrated manual brings Tibet's age-old and traditional discipline into the here and now, with invaluable advice on how to use it to improve your well-being.</p>
Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. Corporal Compassion emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy.Corporal Compassion examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition and challenges practitioners to move past recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach.
Usage of the term 'theory of mind' (ToM) has exploded across fields ranging from developmental psychology to social neuroscience and psychiatry research. However, its meaning is often vague and inconsistent, its biological bases are a subject of debate, and the methods used to study it are highly heterogeneous. Most crucially, its original definition does not permit easy downward translation to more basic processes such as those studied by behavioral neuroscience, leaving the interpretation of neuroimaging results opaque. We argue for a reformulation of ToM through a systematic two-stage approach, beginning with a deconstruction of the construct into a comprehensive set of basic component processes, followed by a complementary reconstruction from which a scientifically tractable concept of ToM can be recovered.
Inferring the beliefs, desires, and intentions of other people (?theory of mind,? ToM) requires specialized psychological processes that represent the minds of others as distinct from our own [1?3]. ToM is engaged ubiquitously in our everyday social behavior and features a specific developmental trajectory [4] that is notably delayed in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) [5, 6]. In healthy individuals, model-based analyses of social learning and decision-making have successfully elucidated specific computational components of ToM processing [7?11]. However, the use of this approach to study ToM impairment in ASD has been extremely limited [10, 12]. To better characterize specific ToM impairment in ASD, we developed a novel learning task and applied model-based analyses in high-functioning adults with ASD and matched healthy controls. After completing a charitable donation task, participants performed a ?mentalizer? task in which they observed another person (the agent) complete the same charity task. The mentalizer task probed the participants? ability to acquire and use ToM representations. To accurately predict agent behavior, participants needed to dynamically track the agent?s beliefs (true or false) about an experimental context that varied over time and use that information to infer the agent?s intentions from their actions. ASD participants were specifically impaired at using their estimates of agent belief to learn agent intentions, though their ability to track agent belief was intact and their reasoning about belief and intentions was rational. Furthermore, model parameters correlated with aspects of social functioning, e.g., ADOS severity scores [13]. Together, these results identify novel, and more specific, targets for future research.
Although there is an abundance of novel interventions for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often their efficacy remains unknown. This systematic review assessed the evidence for 15 new or novel interventions for the treatment of PTSD. Studies that investigated changes to PTSD symptoms following the delivery of any 1 of the 15 interventions of interest were identified through systematic literature searches. There were 19 studies that met the inclusion criteria for this study. Eligible studies were assessed against methodological quality criteria and data were extracted. The majority of the 19 studies were of poor quality, hampered by methodological limitations, such as small sample sizes and lack of control group. There were 4 interventions, however, stemming from a mind-body philosophy (acupuncture, emotional freedom technique, mantra-based meditation, and yoga) that had moderate quality evidence from mostly small- to moderate-sized randomized controlled trials. The active components, however, of these promising emerging interventions and how they related to or were distinct from established treatments remain unclear. The majority of emerging interventions for the treatment of PTSD currently have an insufficient level of evidence supporting their efficacy, despite their increasing popularity. Further well-designed controlled trials of emerging interventions for PTSD are required.
Although there is an abundance of novel interventions for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often their efficacy remains unknown. This systematic review assessed the evidence for 15 new or novel interventions for the treatment of PTSD. Studies that investigated changes to PTSD symptoms following the delivery of any 1 of the 15 interventions of interest were identified through systematic literature searches. There were 19 studies that met the inclusion criteria for this study. Eligible studies were assessed against methodological quality criteria and data were extracted. The majority of the 19 studies were of poor quality, hampered by methodological limitations, such as small sample sizes and lack of control group. There were 4 interventions, however, stemming from a mind-body philosophy (acupuncture, emotional freedom technique, mantra-based meditation, and yoga) that had moderate quality evidence from mostly small- to moderate-sized randomized controlled trials. The active components, however, of these promising emerging interventions and how they related to or were distinct from established treatments remain unclear. The majority of emerging interventions for the treatment of PTSD currently have an insufficient level of evidence supporting their efficacy, despite their increasing popularity. Further well-designed controlled trials of emerging interventions for PTSD are required.
Researchers have recently demonstrated that mind-wandering episodes can vary on numerous dimensions, and it has been suggested that assessing these dimensions will play an important role in our understanding of mind wandering. One dimension that has received considerable attention in recent work is the intentionality of mind wandering. Although it has been claimed that indexing the intentionality of mind wandering will be necessary if researchers are to obtain a coherent understanding of the wandering mind, one concern is that this dimension might be redundant with another, longstanding, dimension: namely, meta-awareness. Thus, the utility of the argument for assessing intentionality rests upon a demonstration that this dimension is distinct from the meta-awareness dimension. To shed light on this issue, across two studies we compared and contrasted these dimensions to determine whether they are redundant or distinct. In both studies, we found support for the view that these dimensions are distinct.
About 50% of cancer patients use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Women with breast cancer use CAM more frequently than others. We linked a questionnaire to the largest internet portal for cancer patients in Germany. The questionnaire addresses attitude towards CAM, disclosure to the oncologist, source of information, and objectives for use of CAM. 80 patients with breast cancer took part in our study, 61 currently using CAM. Most frequently used CAM methods were selenium, relaxation techniques, prayer, vitamin C, and meditation. Satisfaction was highest with relaxation techniques, vitamin C, homeopathy, yoga and Chinese herbs, lowest with mistletoe and acupuncture. 70% of participants did not think their oncologist took time to discuss CAM. Only 16% believed that their oncologist was well-informed about CAM. 46% relied on naturopaths and non-medical practitioners concerning CAM. Objectives for the use of CAM were to reduce side effects, boost the immune system, and become active.
Humans are exceedingly social animals, but the neural underpinnings of social cognition and behavior are not well understood. Studies in humans and other primates have pointed to several structures that play a key role in guiding social behaviors: the amygdala, ventromedial frontal cortices, and right somatosensory-related cortex, among others. These structures appear to mediate between perceptual representations of socially relevant stimuli, such as the sight of conspecifics, and retrieval of knowledge (or elicitation of behaviors) that such stimuli can trigger. Current debates concern the extent to which social cognition draws upon processing specialized for social information, and the relative contributions made to social cognition by innate and acquired knowledge.
To examine the extent to which advanced meditative practices might alter body metabolism and the electroencephalogram (EEG), we investigated three Tibetan Buddhist monks living in the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, India. In a study carried out in February 1988, we found that during the practice of several different meditative practices, resting metabolism ([Vdot]O2) could be both raised (up to 61%) and lowered (down to 64%). The reduction from rest is the largest ever reported. On the EEG, marked asymmetry in alpha and beta activity between the hemispheres and increased beta activity were present. From these three case reports, we conclude that advanced meditative practices may yield different alterations in metabolism (there are also forms of meditation that increase metabolism) and that the decreases in metabolism can be striking.