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WASHINGTON, USA, August 15, 2003: A study has found people practicing meditation for eight weeks have the ability to produce more antibodies to a flu vaccine and showed increased activity in areas of the brain related to positive emotion than individuals who did not meditate. The study is the first to connect meditation to changes in brain activity associated with positive feeling, and the first to show that mediation can affect immune function, says Dr. Richard J. Davidson of the University of Wisconsin and his colleagues. “Our findings indicate that a short training program in mindful meditation has demonstrable effects on brain and immune function and underscores the need for additional research on the biological consequences of this intervention,” a report in the Newswire quoted Davidson as saying. Forty-eight biotechnology company employees participated in the study, in which half of them received weekly meditation training. All participants also received a flu vaccine during the study. At several points during the study, the researchers measured brain activity as the employees rested or wrote about positive and negative emotional experiences from their lives. They also tracked immune responses among the employees by measuring the level of antibodies produced by the flu vaccination. It was found that those meditating experienced more electrical activity in the relevant areas of the brain and higher levels of antibodies than employees who did not meditate.

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