As You Think... So You Become

Did you know that what you take in with your eyes and ears and rehearse in your mind actually changes your brain? 

 

The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) recently had its annual meeting in Chicago.  Radiologists are the medical doctors who read X-rays and brain scans.  One kind of brain scan is called functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI for short.  These scans show which areas of the brain are active at a given time and can show changes in the architecture of brain over time.  Recently, this technology has been used to study what happens in the brain during thought, emotions, and behaviors. 

 

Vincent Matthews, a radiologist from Indianapolis Indianna reported at this conference on a small fMRI study he did with men who engaged in video gaming. The men played violent video games for about 10 hours a week and then underwent fMRI brain scans which showed diminished activity in areas of the brain associated with the control of aggressive behavior.  Then they quit.  And after being off of video gaming for a week the repeat scans showed that they had regained their prefrontal activation.  Now granted, this was just a small study.  Most of these kinds of studies are small right now, so the results are necessarily inconclusive.  But the study does suggest that playing violent video games changes the brain in one way and stopping changes back to the way it was.  So what happens when someone plays violent video games for days and weeks and months and years?  How permanent are those changes?  And how reversible?  That's what we don't yet know...and might not know for a while yet.  Still, the evidence is beginning to accumulate. 

 

And we know that the opposite is also true.  If we define the "opposite" of rehearsing violent video images as mindfulness meditation, then we can see that being calm and centered for stretches of time also changes the brain.  The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that is involved in deliberate, thoughtful choice--the opposite of impulsiveness.  Highly effective people are able to tolerate negative emotions and to recover from negative feelings without acting impulsively or aggressively.  Several studies show that mindfulness meditation and mindfulness based psychotherapy changes how people respond to life's vicissistudes--and the brain scans show that this kind of therapy also changes the architecture of the brain. In fact, just 8 sessions of mindfulness training begins to change the brain.   How long those changes last depens on how long the person sustains the behavior.  Keeping up the repetitions long enough to make a habit and keeping up the habit long enough to result in cortical thickening. 

 

Little by little, the science of functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI is beginning to unlock the secrets of the brain. Little by little scientists are discovering what pathways are activated when we experience negative emotions and which ones turn on when we experience love and other positive feelings.  And we are also discovering that what clinical hypnotists said about placebos--that the brain cannot easily distinguish between what is "real" and what is immagined is also true.  It is looking very much as if the wisdom of ancient sacred texts like the bible are proving to be true--whatever you think, you become.  Your thoughts do, quite literally, change your brain. 

 

Choose carefully.