Philippe’s presentation is below for those who wanted a second look at the slides. You can also download the presentation below. It includes Philippe’s contact info and how you can enroll in his future studies.

The Presentation
(To move to the next slide, click on the right side of the current slide. Click on the left side to go back.)

Download the Powerpoint Presentation

Our next speaker, Dr. Philippe Goldin, is trying to understand how meditation does impact stress, especially on those with social anxiety. Here’s an excerpt from Philippe’s Stanford website:

We are currently offering free treatment to people with social anxiety at Stanford University. The treatment study’s goal is to better understand the mechanisms of therapeutic change and its long-term impact in individuals who suffer from social anxiety.

We are seeking people with English fluency who are right handed, ages 21-55, and who are willing to discontinue use of mood or anxiety medications and concurrent therapy for the duration of their participation in the study.

Here is more information about the two social anxiety treatment studies we are running. Both of these programs are completely free.
1. Stress Reduction (SR)
2. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

You can find out more information on the CAAN site. And as a veteran of Philippe’s studies (here’s a KQED piece on fMRI as well), I must say the experience was somewhere between absolutely fascinating and riveting. It’s not often you get a high quality picture of your brain and be able to ask cutting edge researchers questions along the way.

Social Anxiety disorder (SAD) affects roughly 12% of us at least at some point during our life. Our next speaker, Philippe Goldin, is studying the effects of Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) aka meditation on social anxiety.

“The idea is that if a person has the psychological flexibility to shift freely from one mode of thinking to another mode, then that is a sign of health,” said Goldin. “It’s when we get stuck in certain thinking patterns that our beliefs become maladaptive.”

Specifically, the MBSR proved effective silencing the inner critic…you know the one that judges your every action. (Mine is saying I’m a terrible writer right now). They measured this by gauging reaction to negative self-beliefs while inside a fMRI machine. I should know, I took part in this study!

Simply put, meditation proved very effective over a 2 month period. The lay conclusion…slowing down, taking the time to practice mindfulness over a period had a significant impact on internal views. There was an uptick in the use of positive descriptive words such as “admired” and “loved”.

Not surprising, but it does serve as a good reminder that we all need to slow down a bit and maintain a healthy practice to combat the inevitable bout of social anxiety.

More Info:
Stanford Press Release
Philippe’s Paper on Social Anxiety
Philippe’s Paper on Emotional Reactivity

Dr. Phillipe Goldin, a past speaker on the Neuroscience of Meditation, is looking for participants in a social anxiety study (the anxiety is mitigated through meditation) . I took part in such a study last year, you can read about my experience here. More info can be found below.

In addition, our next speaker Dr. Adam Gazzaley, runs studies on normal aging in adults. He is mainly looking for adults aged 18-35 or over 60. Most of the studies involve fMRI or EEG, check out Wired Science for a story of a guinea pig. For more info, check out Adam’s participate page.

Dr. Goldin’s Study
Treatment Study for Social Anxiety at Stanford University

We are running two studies at Stanford University where we are offering (1) 16 sessions of free state-of-the-art cognitive behavioral therapy, or (2) 9 weeks of stress reduction (either a mindfulness based stress reduction or an exercise stress reduction) to people with social anxiety. The treatment study?s goal is to better understand the mechanisms of therapeutic change and its long-term impact in individuals who suffer from social anxiety.

We are seeking people with English fluency who are right handed, age
21-55 individuals who primarily have problems with social anxiety and are able to commute to Stanford University assessments. Treatment can take place in SF or the Peninsula. We also ask that study participants be willing to discontinue use of mood or anxiety medications and concurrent therapy for the duration of their participation in the study.

If you would like more information or you have a referral, please view our website (http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~caan/) and call
(650-723-5977) or email us (caan at psych.stanford.edu)

In his studies, Adam has shown there is a large neural network at play with this basic function. His work is focused on studying the degradation of this network as we age and potential methods to restore it (medicinal, surgical, and even games/brain exercises).

Want to learn more?:
UCSF’s podcast with Adam
Adam’s Research Group
Adam’s Photography Site
Science Interview with Adam
Wired Article on being a subject in Adam’s Memory Study

It was probably a touch simpler to just interview some past study participants, but where’s the fun in that? So I took part in a meditation/anxiety study in February.

The study focused on emotion processing & anxiety and how these might change with mindfulness based stress reduction or cognitive-behavioral therapy i.e. how meditation affects anxiety.

The process was similar to the one shown in this vid (courtesy Science Friday)

Day 1 was relatively simple…just a phone screen making sure I was capable of taking part in the study. I’m not pregnant, I meet certain demographic criteria, I’m not currently in any other studies, yadda yadda.

Day 2 was a battery of tests. First I answered more in-depth general interview questions, not so different from the phone screen…a breeze. The interviewer commented “it’s good to have someone so emotionally healthy”. I guess I’m not a very anxiety riddled person.

Onto the neuro-cognition tests! Some were basic responsiveness to simple questions, others a little more telling of my experiences with anxiety. The responsiveness tests were intriguing, many asked questions liked how I associated certain words to myself and life (e.g. WEAK, STRONG, ANXIOUS, etc.).

Next step, answering questions about my past. That’s right, I had to detail 4 of the most embarrassing, humiliating, anxiety inducing moments of my life. Nothing quite like reliving some of those….especially on camera. That’s right, on CAMERA. It was a little difficult, but I managed to drag through.

About a week later, I returned for my fMRI. They had a digitized my stories (those humiliating ones) ready to be beamed into the MRI machine. I got strapped in…pretty much to the point of immobility. A set of buttons was attached to each of the digits of my right hand…I would use the buttons to gauge my reaction while in the machine.

So, I’m basically wheeled into this tiny space…now its time to watch a little TV (there was rig to project in video during the scan). They take some initial scans, the machine is quite exceptionally loud by the way (I had protective headphones on). Then the tests begin. In one set of tests, I react to people’s face (some nasty, some neutral, some nice). In another I react to my own humiliating stories, with each story broken up with affirming or negative thoughts (e.g. I AM WEAK, That doesn’t apply to me, etc.). The series of tests took about 1.5 hours…I must say they required a reasonable amount of focus. I was feeling somewhat spent afterward….had me question how an “abnormal” patient would handle the experience.

Overall, I have to say the experience was intriguing. I noticed how my reactions to the “angry” faces were all very similar, I sorta wanted to run out the machine at times. Also, I felt really good about myself after the tests….as if my self-esteem had grown a couple points.

The process was also fascinating…how detailed it was in the interview/testing phases. Even though I was paid $200, I have to imagine most would refuse such a rigorous process even with that kind of nugget, considering the time involved (close to 10 hours total). At this point, I do believe the study is ongoing. The intention was to bring everyone back at the end for a results reveal…I will update if that happens.

In case you’re curious, the study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, JWK Foundation and the Mind and Life Research Institute.

An attendee at the “Neuroscience of Meditation” event recently published an article on Divine Caroline detailing her experience with meditation. The article also details her experience at the DtaS event. Personally, I found the article deeply touching…I encourage everyone to check it out.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

After a break, I explained to Goldin that I had experienced the same results. I told him that my boyfriend, who had practiced mindfulness meditation for almost four years and had initially benefited, ultimately had a hard time with meditation in the end. I told Goldin that I was a writer searching for answers, and that my boyfriend had taken his own life last January, and so I wondered if mindfulness meditation was really for everyone.

He spoke about skillfulness in a meditation practice, and how we needed to have the awareness to ask ourselves, ?o I have the cast iron mind space, or the ability to hold the experiences that come up when I do deeper meditation practice??Ultimately, his answer was the one I had been searching for all along.

Later, the woman sitting next to me handed me a folded piece of paper and said to me, ?his isn? from me; it? from another women who just left.?On the front it read, ?o a writer who will write a book I will read.?I opened the note from this mystery woman and read, ? came tonight thinking I would take my life. I won? now because of you. Thank you.?I gasped. Once again, I became reminded of how we were all interconnected. My quest for truth had taken my breath away.

Takeaway
It is amazing the impact we have on each other, especially when we share our passions, our vulnerabilities, our humanity. In many ways, that’s all I’m trying to do with this science cafe.

More Info
Paper on Suicide Prevention using Mindfullness

The motivation? Nanoparticles can pass directly into cells, with potential harmful effects.

How dangerous are these little particles? No one knows. Many studies are underway to understand the effect of continued nanoparticle exposure.

A recent study indicates nanoparticles of TiO2, a compound used in personal care and food products, generate oxygen free radicals when coming in contact with brain cells. Specifically, microglia cells, the brain’s cell protection against foreign pathogens, would release oxygen free radicals when coming in contact with the TiO2. The microglia cells were undamaged, but the free radical release could affect neuron in a way similar to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers. It is premature to say TiO2 damages the brain, but this study definitely brings up the possibility.

The federal government has responded by creating a list of research priorities around nanotoxicology. The US NNI established a research strategy to better understand nanotoxicology, including identification of nanomaterials at tissue, cellular, and molecular levels.

Takeaway
Our understanding of nanotoxicology is in its infancy. With hundreds of consumer products already using nanomaterials, it is good to hear the federal government stepping in. However, the research also indicates it’s time from more research, not necessarily time for policy right now. In that way, I believe strengthening legislation is ahead of the curve.

More Info
US NNI Nanotoxicology Research Strategy
Inventory of Nanomaterials in Consumer Products
Science report on TiO2 effects
Chronicle story of Berkeley Nano Regulation

We are looking for healthy controls (no history of any psychiatric conditions) with these criteria: age can be +-2 years in either direction. We pay controls $200 for about 6-7 hours of assessment.

45 y.o. caucasian man, Masters degree
43 y.o. caucasian man, Masters degree
43 y.o. african-american man, Bachelors degree
28 y.o. Indian man, Masters degree
25 y.o. pacific islander (filipino) man, some college
46 y.o. caucasian woman, some college
49 y.o. caucasian woman

If you are interested, please contact Philippe (pgoldin stanford.edu)

Pics and Videos from the Neuroscience of meditation event are up on the website. As always, you can watch snippets of the video on YouTube as well.

In addition, Phillippe has provided some pdfs for your reading pleasure:

Article from Science Magazine on meeting of buddhist monks and neuroscientists
Australian Journal Review Paper on Mindfullness Pyschotherapies
Overview of Mindfullness from Journal of Clinical Pyschology
Short Paper on Emotion Regulation
Paper on Suicide Prevention using Mindfullness

And finally, an attendee recorded a podcast of the event. Here’s some more links:

Podcast + Blog Recap of the event from attendee