> In article <3815BF86.5A751ECE at colorado.edu>,
> Alexander Shenkin <al at cad-tech.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>> I'm researching meditation, it's effects, and other altered states of
>> conciousness from (as much as possible) the perspective of
>> neuroscience. Are there canonical works in this field on this
> subject?
>> Major figures? Also, if anyone know of good resources out there,
> those
>> would also be greatly apprecicated. Thanks very much...
>>>> Alex Shenkin
Some major figures that I know (of): Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson (a
pioneer in meditation from a behavioral medicine point of view; coined
the terms "the relaxation response" and "the faith factor"); Deane Schapiro
(a major researcher on the psychology of meditation); Patricia Carrington
(Princeton psychologist among the pioneers of med. in psychotherapy); Jon
Kabat-Zinn (pioneered research on clinical use of mindfulness meditation).
You might also find the work of Elmer Green and Joe(?) Kamiya interesting.
They were among the pioneers of EEG studies of altered states of
consciousness.
Other long-time experts: Charles Tart, Daniel Goleman.
When it comes to specifically *neuroscientific* (brain wave effects,
cerebral synchrony...) studies, I think that almost all of it has been
done on transcendental meditation, mostly in the 70s and 80s, beginning
with Wallace and Benson's paper circa 1972 in Science, I believe.
You might also find some useful stuff related to the neurophysiology of
meditation in the writings of Barbara Brown, Candace Pert, and Karl
Pribram.
Syd
_______________________
http://www.escape.ca/~sgb
Dealing with Depression Naturally
and other books by Syd Baumel.
...and cool record reviews!
