Esoterik und Wissenschaft
Biologische Mechanismen von Körper-Geist-Interaktionen.

In der Meditations- und Eso-Szene tauchen immer wieder Begriffe auf wie Kundalini, Öffnung der Chakren, Samadhi... . Was ist das physiologische Korrelat dieser Phänomene? Hier geht es auch um die Schärfung der Sinne.

(2) Epigenetik_-_FAZ_2008_05

Hier wird beschrieben, wie es möglich sein kann durch einschneidende Erlebnisse die Expression von Erbgut eventulell sogar über Generationen hinweg zu beeinflussen. Es vielleicht der Schlüssel, über den durch externe Einflüsse das Instinktverhalten geschaltet werden kann.

Link zu einer Seminarseite über Buddhismus und Meditation

(3) Wissenschaftliche Literatur

Dor-Ziderman, Y., Berkovich-Ohana, A., Glicksohn, J., & Goldstein, A. (2013). Mindfulness-induced selflessness: A MEG neurophenomenological study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00582
Abstr: Contemporary philosophical and neurocognitive studies of the self have dissociated two distinct types of self-awareness: a 'narrative' self-awareness (NS) weaving together episodic memory, future planning and self-evaluation into a coherent self-narrative and identity, and a 'minimal' self-awareness (MS) focused on present momentary experience and closely tied to the sense of agency and ownership. Long-term Buddhist meditation practice aims at realization of a 'selfless' mode of awareness (SL), where identification with a static sense of self is replaced by identification with the phenomenon of experiencing itself. NS-mediating mechanisms have been explored by neuroimaging, mainly fMRI, implicating prefrontal midline structures, but MS processes are not well characterized and SL even less so. To this end we tested 12 long-term mindfulness meditators using a neurophenomenological study design, incorporating both magnetoencephalogram (MEG) recordings and first person descriptions. We found that (1) NS attenuation involves extensive frontal, and medial prefrontal gamma band (60-80 Hz) power decreases, consistent with fMRI and intracranial EEG findings; (2) MS attenuation is related to beta-band (13-25 Hz) power decreases in a network that includes ventral medial prefrontal, medial posterior and lateral parietal regions; and (3) the experience of selflessness is linked to attenuation of beta-band activity in the right inferior parietal lobule. These results highlight the role of dissociable frequency-dependent networks in supporting different modes of self-processing, and the utility of combining phenomenology, mindfulness training and electrophysiological neuroimaging for characterizing self-awareness.

Tomasino, B., Fregona, S., Skrap, M., & Fabbro, F. (2013). Meditation related activations are modulated by the practices needed to obtain it and by the expertise: an ALE meta-analysis study. [Original Research]. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00346
Abstr: The brain network governing meditation has been studied using a variety of meditation practices and techniques practices eliciting different cognitive processes (e.g., silence, attention to own body, sense of joy, mantras, etc.). It is very possible that different practices of meditation are subserved by largely, if not entirely, disparate brain networks. This assumption was tested by conducting an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of meditation neuroimaging studies, which assessed 150 activation foci from 24 experiments. Different ALE meta-analyses were carried out. One involved the subsets of studies involving meditation induced through exercising focused attention. The network included clusters bilaterally in the medial gyrus, the left superior parietal lobe, the left insula and the right supramarginal gyrus. A second analysis addressed the studies involving meditation states induced by chanting or by repetition of words or phrases, known as ‘mantra’. This type of practice elicited a cluster of activity in the right supramarginal gyrus, the SMA bilaterally and the left postcentral gyrus. Furthermore, the last analyses addressed the effect of meditation experience (i.e., short- vs. long-term meditators). We found that frontal activation was present for short-term, as compared with long-term experience meditators, confirming that experts are better enabled to sustain attentional focus, rather recruiting the right supramarginal gyrus and concentrating on aspects involving disembodiment.