The neurotheology is a new branch of science that promises interesting discoveries . Developed using the latest technologies for exploring the brain's activity in full operation, has shown, for example, that meditation and prayer can change the structure of the brain. The psychologist Charles Zeiders has published in The Global Spiral an article that reviews the history of neurotheology and wishes him a bright future: the science show that meditation and prayer improve the brain's ability to resist processes disease or that could reverse the degradation the brain's own age. For Yaiza Martínez.
psychologist Charles Zeiders , clinical director of Christian Counseling and Therapy U.S. Associates, explained in an article in the journal The Global Spiral, the Metanexus Institute, which is the neurotheology , also known as bioteología or spiritual neuroscience.
neurotheology writes Zeiders, is a new science that explores how the states of the brain and nervous system can create or relate to the experience of religious experience.
These explorations have been made possible thanks to new technologies, and are interdisciplinary thinkers helping to develop a theology based on science, to understand, for example, the relationship between faith and health. Fe and benefits
The origin of neurotheology is in the works of Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School who studied in depth the role that the autonomic nervous system plays in the disease process human.
Benson stated that the stress response system affects the entire nervous system. He also made another interesting discovery: the mantras meditation helps relax the nervous system, lower pressure blood pressure, improve heart health, prolong life, in addition to happiness and to generate the feeling of being closer to a transcendent entity, among other advantages.
After years of research, Benson discovered, on the other side that people who practiced meditation as a form of prayer tend to be healthier than those who practiced it merely as a vehicle for achieving physiological and physical benefits, Zeiders said.
The belief in God while stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (which is part of the autonomic nervous system) by faith-based meditation, meant higher profits mind and body for meditation agnostic medical or established Benson.
Other subsequent studies, of which we have spoken in Tendencias21 have also focused on analyzing the relationship between prayer and health. Neurotheology and technology
The course taken by neurotheology has been determined by the latest technology, Zeiders said. The technologies have expanded the human capacity to study how the brain responds to experience and religious attitudes.
In 2001, for example, scientists Newberg, D'Aquili and Rouse wrote a book on the results of exploration with neuroimaging the brains of Tibetan monks and Franciscan.
With them, the researchers found that the summit of prayer, both groups of meditators experienced an increase in blood flow to the brain's frontal lobes, and decreased blood flow in the parietal lobes.
On the other hand, for an experience of transcendence, the brains of the monks showed a high degree of blood flow in brain areas related to attention, but a low level of fluid in the neural areas that connect the mind and body .
This study method allowed us to understand religious experience subjective states of consciousness through the activity brain. So they have connected the spiritual experience with neurology. New directions for research
According Zeiders, studies in recent years by researcher Sara Lazar , the department of psychiatry at Harvard University, could indicate the type of discoveries that can be expected in the coming years neurotheology .
Lazar and her colleagues analyzed with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique that uses magnetic resonance phenomenon for information on the structure and composition of the brain, a practicing Buddhist Vipassana meditation , which is a technique of self-insight based on the observation of mind and matter.
Thus they were able to relate the practice of this type of meditation with increased cortical thickness of the brain. On the other hand, has demonstrated similar process other people who practice meditation techniques have a thicker crust that people who are not engaged.
Future studies could demonstrate that different types of meditation and prayer improve the brain's ability to resist disease processes. On the other hand, could also prove to be both useful meditation techniques to slow and even reverse cerebral degradation own age.
also perhaps find that meditation and prayer can improve parts of the brain that have been dwindling as a result of neurotoxins caused by the consumption of chemicals.
These findings will undoubtedly be the result of enormous interest to this branch of science among increasingly arouses specialists, as detailed in the article Tendencias21, new study extends the understanding of religious experience , signed by Oscar Castro García .
psychologist Charles Zeiders , clinical director of Christian Counseling and Therapy U.S. Associates, explained in an article in the journal The Global Spiral, the Metanexus Institute, which is the neurotheology , also known as bioteología or spiritual neuroscience.
neurotheology writes Zeiders, is a new science that explores how the states of the brain and nervous system can create or relate to the experience of religious experience.
These explorations have been made possible thanks to new technologies, and are interdisciplinary thinkers helping to develop a theology based on science, to understand, for example, the relationship between faith and health. Fe and benefits
The origin of neurotheology is in the works of Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School who studied in depth the role that the autonomic nervous system plays in the disease process human.
Benson stated that the stress response system affects the entire nervous system. He also made another interesting discovery: the mantras meditation helps relax the nervous system, lower pressure blood pressure, improve heart health, prolong life, in addition to happiness and to generate the feeling of being closer to a transcendent entity, among other advantages.
After years of research, Benson discovered, on the other side that people who practiced meditation as a form of prayer tend to be healthier than those who practiced it merely as a vehicle for achieving physiological and physical benefits, Zeiders said.
The belief in God while stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system (which is part of the autonomic nervous system) by faith-based meditation, meant higher profits mind and body for meditation agnostic medical or established Benson.
Other subsequent studies, of which we have spoken in Tendencias21 have also focused on analyzing the relationship between prayer and health. Neurotheology and technology
The course taken by neurotheology has been determined by the latest technology, Zeiders said. The technologies have expanded the human capacity to study how the brain responds to experience and religious attitudes.
In 2001, for example, scientists Newberg, D'Aquili and Rouse wrote a book on the results of exploration with neuroimaging the brains of Tibetan monks and Franciscan.
With them, the researchers found that the summit of prayer, both groups of meditators experienced an increase in blood flow to the brain's frontal lobes, and decreased blood flow in the parietal lobes.
On the other hand, for an experience of transcendence, the brains of the monks showed a high degree of blood flow in brain areas related to attention, but a low level of fluid in the neural areas that connect the mind and body .
This study method allowed us to understand religious experience subjective states of consciousness through the activity brain. So they have connected the spiritual experience with neurology. New directions for research
According Zeiders, studies in recent years by researcher Sara Lazar , the department of psychiatry at Harvard University, could indicate the type of discoveries that can be expected in the coming years neurotheology .
Lazar and her colleagues analyzed with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique that uses magnetic resonance phenomenon for information on the structure and composition of the brain, a practicing Buddhist Vipassana meditation , which is a technique of self-insight based on the observation of mind and matter.
Thus they were able to relate the practice of this type of meditation with increased cortical thickness of the brain. On the other hand, has demonstrated similar process other people who practice meditation techniques have a thicker crust that people who are not engaged.
Future studies could demonstrate that different types of meditation and prayer improve the brain's ability to resist disease processes. On the other hand, could also prove to be both useful meditation techniques to slow and even reverse cerebral degradation own age.
also perhaps find that meditation and prayer can improve parts of the brain that have been dwindling as a result of neurotoxins caused by the consumption of chemicals.
These findings will undoubtedly be the result of enormous interest to this branch of science among increasingly arouses specialists, as detailed in the article Tendencias21, new study extends the understanding of religious experience , signed by Oscar Castro García .
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