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DR RICHARD J DAVIDSON

Dr Richard J Davidson, a US-based neuroscientist and Founder and Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shares the behind his work on , regulation, and their impacts on wellbeing and education

to characterise how the central circuits understanding the basic mechanisms by of emotion and emotion regulation are which the mind and brain work and can be connected to peripheral biological systems transformed. In addition, the research is that are implicated in physical health – such motivated by a sincere aspiration that this as immune and endocrine function; and to work could be of some benefit to others who investigate methods to cultivate resilient may be suffering, or who may not enjoy the emotional styles in both children and , highest levels of wellbeing they might attain. and their underlying mechanisms. Is funding limited for this area of research? This research emerges from the understanding that how a person responds to life’s slings There are quite severe budget constraints for and arrows determines much about their government funding of this research in the mental and physical health. It also emerges US today – we critically need a diverse range from a conviction that health is not simply of support for this work. Some of the studies the absence of illness and that preventative we are conducting are so highly novel that strategies can be implemented to cultivate even if there were more funds available at © Jeff Miller, University of Wisconsin-Madison both psychological and physical wellbeing. The the US federal level, such work would not be work is also rooted in efforts to meaningfully prioritised. Thus, a combination of government connect modern with ancient and private sources of support are needed. Could you provide an overview of your contemplative traditions in which various current research activities and explain what meditative practices were developed that are Have any of your research prompted your interest in these areas? now being rigorously studied using modern recommendations been implemented in scientific methods. schools? How has your work been received I have been deeply interested in human by education professionals and policy emotion since I began my professional life How does mindfulness affect a child’s leaders? as a scientist. What particularly fascinates learning experience, interaction with others me about emotion is the extraordinary and social-emotional wellbeing? Our kindness curriculum for preschool range of individual variation in how humans children has been adopted by the Madison respond to emotional challenges. There Training in simple secular mindfulness practices Public Schools. Many other school districts are remarkable individual differences in in young children appears to strengthen from around the US as well as from a number response to adversity, in how we regulate selective attention, cognitive control and of other countries have expressed great our and in the maintenance of empathic accuracy. If future research supports interest in using this curriculum, as well as wellbeing. I have been interested in the these early findings, it would suggest that using the video games we are developing. neural bases and biobehavioural correlates mindfulness training in young children can In general, the work has been received of these individual differences as well as enhance self-control and beneficially impact extremely well by leaders in education, but in how we can promote more adaptive a range of related outcomes – including future we face challenges in scaling the curriculum and optimal affective styles to cultivate health outcomes, substance use, financial widely since it currently depends upon expert resilience and improve wellbeing. planning and success. It may also strengthen a instructors to provide the training. We are range of prosocial skills that include emotion in the process of evaluating whether it is What is the main mission of your regulation and resilience. possible to provide just eight to 10 weeks of work? From what context did this training for the regular classroom teachers research emerge? What research questions do you still hope and then have them teach the kindness to answer and why? curriculum. We do not yet know how feasible The overall goals of our work are to investigate this might be. Nor do we know what impact the neural bases and biobehavioural There are many research questions that the digital games might have. We should be consequences of individual differences we still hope to investigate – but the ‘why’ in a position to answer these key questions in emotion regulation and wellbeing; is motivated by a deep curiosity toward within the next 12 months. WWW.RESEARCHMEDIA.EU 117 DR RICHARD J DAVIDSON Can we learn wellbeing and resilience?

Researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin- Madison, USA are developing simple secular techniques derived from meditative traditions to cultivate wellbeing in children and adults and to decrease suffering in those afflicted with various neuropsychiatric disorders

MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITIES contemplative practices might impact the EARLY EXPERIENCES have shown a growing interest in recent years in brain and thereby produce behavioural changes the Eastern approach to wellbeing, particularly in qualities such as attention, as well in the As part of their basic research, Davidson’s team as various secular-based practices regulation of emotion. is particularly interested in studying the impact have been incorporated into mainstream clinical of early experience on the development of practice. The main difference between the two the brain and behaviour – and it has already approaches to health is that while Western shown some interesting results in this area. medicine places considerable emphasis on Emotional responses are a deeply personal The group’s studies have revealed that early disease, the contemplative traditions of the East part of the human psyche, and vary widely life stress experienced within the first year has focus on wellness. As serious research interest in among individuals. Emotional styles refer ripple effects that can still be detected in late these methods to cultivate wellbeing increases, to consistent differences among people adolescence. For example, abnormalities in there is recognition that these two great wisdom in patterns of emotional responding and connectivity between the amygdala and the traditions have much to learn from one another. emotion regulation. Sometimes one’s prefrontal cortex could be measured in 18-year- emotional style is advantageous and other old girls who suffered from early adversity. Indeed, many people attest to the benefits of times they can be problematic and increase an In earlier work, Davidson and colleagues had wellness practices such as meditation, yoga and individual’s vulnerability to psychopathology. established the importance of prefrontal- tai chi – and their positive impacts on health Resilience is an emotional style that has been amygdala connectivity for emotion regulation. have sometimes been confirmed in scientific operationalised as the rapidity of recovery from research, although the mechanisms underlying adversity and can be measured in specific neural their effects remain elusive. This is changing, systems. If interventions to shift individuals however, as basic advances in scientific into a more resilient emotional style can be understanding of neuroplasticity now provide developed, particularly in young children, then These findings suggest that a framework in which to appreciate how simple there is a potential to prevent the subsequent development of psychopathology and improve constructs such as attention, developmental outcomes. More generally, if cognitive control and prosocial children could be taught to be more emotionally intelligent, the consequences for social and behaviour are best regarded academic success could be significant. as skills that can be enhanced A group of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is working to bring to through training fruition this exact educational advance. The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, led This work clearly demonstrates that early by Dr , aims not only to experience has long-term consequences, and answer fundamental questions pertaining the emotional regulation circuitry of to the biobehavioural patterns of emotional the brain may not express these consequences development, but also to link these patterns until much later in life. with specific interventions for young students, teachers and other groups. The researchers have The practical element of the team’s research lies already identified a number of fascinating trends in developing interventions for early age groups, in this area that may illuminate further paths to which could be beneficial to the development Long-term meditation practitioner prepared for wellbeing – and their deeply novel work, which of social and emotional behaviour in the long recording high density brain electrical activity in often draws on ancient contemplative traditions term. The researchers are specifically developing the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds. in combination with rigorous neuroscience, has interventions to cultivate mindfulness, kindness © Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and attracted the interest of many organisations and prosocial behaviour in young children. A Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison around the world. major component of this work is the ‘kindness

118 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION curriculum’, a 12-week course geared towards scientific and educational communities around preschool and kindergarten students. The the world, it is far from their only interest. programme calls for 90 minutes of dedicated Their broad research programme has produced NEURAL BASES OF RESILIENCE, VULNERABILITY AND WELLBEING classroom instruction per week delivered by a variety of discoveries – for example, they trained mindfulness teachers – and early results have shown that mindfulness exercises not OBJECTIVES are already showing that students taking part in only alter emotional networks in the brain, To investigate the causes and consequences of the programme demonstrate better attention, but also down-regulate inflammatory markers resilience, vulnerability and wellbeing from a cognitive control and prosocial behaviour than and the expression of genes implicated in the neuroscientific perspective. students in a comparison condition who receive inflammatory cascade. What is more, in several a standard curriculum. These findings suggest of their tests, they found that these benefits Studies include the impact of early adversity on brain function and structure over the that these constructs are best regarded as skills correlate in magnitude to the lifetime hours first two years of life; basic research on the that can be enhanced through training. spent practicing mindfulness. fundamental neural mechanisms of emotion regulation and their dysregulation in mood and Prior to introducing the Kindness Curriculum VETTING VETERANS anxiety disorders; and the impact of secular into the classroom, the Wisconsin team provided contemplative-based interventions designed teachers a 10-week training in mindfulness. This Davidson and his colleagues have also put their to promote wellbeing on brain function and training was based upon Mindfulness-based findings into applications beyond education. structure and behaviour in both adults and in Stress Reduction (MBSR) that was originally One study, for example, has been concerned children from preschool to adolescents. developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University with using mindfulness exercises alongside KEY COLLABORATORS of Massachusetts Medical School. This separate breathing exercises derived from yoga to study found that mindfulness had a significant improve the lives of veterans. Soldiers suffering Collaborators at the University of Wisconsin- impact on teachers as well as students; teacher from post-traumatic stress syndrome after Madison and elsewhere throughout the world The major Wisconsin collaborators include: Ned burnout was reduced, self-compassion was returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are the Kalin; Marilyn Essex; Hill Goldsmith; Su-Chun enhanced and observer-rated classroom subject of this ongoing study, which fits into the Zhang; Carol Ryff; Giulio Tononi; William organisation improved. These findings, along broader arc of the team’s research into which Busse; Andrew Alexander; Seth Pollak; with others in the literature, suggest that interventions and exercises are most effective Constance Steinkuhler; Kurt Squire mindfulness approaches benefit both students for different types of neuropsychiatric disorders. FUNDING and teachers. To this end, the emotional and cognitive styles of the veterans will be assessed at the beginning National Institute of • National of the study and relations between individual Center for Complementary and Alternative VIDEO GAMES FOR differences on these measures and response Medicine • National Institute on Aging • MINDFULNESS AND KINDNESS to treatment will be determined. In addition, Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human The Wisconsin researchers are also keen to changes in brain function and structure that Development (all branches of the National Institutes of Health) • John Templeton determine if digital technology can be used to may be associated with symptom change will Foundation • Several generous family teach simple skills of mindfulness and kindness be examined. This study is ongoing. foundations and individual donors to middle-school children aged 11-13 years. The group has created two video games designed to CONTACT A CONTINUING CONTRIBUTION cultivate mindfulness and kindness respectively, Professor Richard J Davidson and their current studies evaluate the impact of Davidson’s Center has already produced some Principal Investigator game playing on brain function and structure, very compelling results, and the practical assessed with MRI and behavioural performance applications that this research promises University of Wisconsin-Madison 1500 Highland Avenue Madison on various tasks designed to measure attention, are atypical in studies so novel as these. Wisconsin 53705-2280, USA cognitive control and prosocial behaviour. With a sound neuroscientific foundation Children are randomly assigned to play either a to draw upon, and a clear vision of the T +1 608 265 8189 commercial video game or one of two custom- possible applications of this kind of work, the E [email protected] built games – one designed to emphasise Wisconsin researchers seem certain to succeed mindfulness, the other empathy, prosocial in their aims. They are poised, therefore, to RICHARD J DAVIDSON is the William behaviour and kindness – for between 20 and sustain contributions to the wellbeing of people James and Vilas Professor of and 30 minutes each day. These results are expected at many different ages and to the reduction of , Director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and Founder and to be available after the study is concluded in suffering among those with neuropsychiatric Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy March 2014. disorders, and victims of adversity. Minds, at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his PhD from PERIPHERAL BIOLOGY in Psychology and has been at Wisconsin since 1984. He is co-author Although the researchers’ work on the (with ) of developing brain and programmes for use in bestseller The Emotional Life of Your Brain that early education is an important focus, and was published in 2012. Davidson has been a one that has garnered much attention from member of the ’s Board of Directors since 1991.

In 2006, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, and in 2007, Madison Magazine named him Person of the Year. In 2011, he was given the Paul D MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine.

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