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The Fairfield Ledger, Tuesday, August 31, l993, No. 171
Scientist sees TM as new method of brain rehabilitation By Marni Mellen A prominent Russian scientist who has specialized for years in restorative brain research now looks upon the practice of transcendental meditation as a new method of rehabilitation of the brain damaged. Dr. Nikoli Lyubemov is chairman of the Department of Neurocybernetics of the Brain Research Institute for the Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow. He ended a visit Sunday to Maharishi International University after studying EEG patterns in TM practitioners. "Meditation has great possibilities," he said in a heavy Russian accent. It has been 25 years since he spent six months at the University of California, Los Angeles, working with American colleagues on the problem of helping people with brain damage. It had been observed that injured animals seemed to recover with stimulation of unused pathways of the brain, Lyubemov noted. Stimulation to the left side of the body increased right-side brain activity. Stimulation to the right side increased activity on the left side of the brain. Lyubemov has found widerspread brain activity, the use of more pathways when TM practitioners are meditating. He said he has come to believe that meditation is a more effective stimulation with faster results than retraining an individual with a brain injury with more conventional, external means of stimulation. "All my life, I was looking for a new method of stimulation of mobilization," he said. "I knew there were different pathways, but had never thought of such a means of unfolding the brain much broader. Lyubemov was involved in the big TM conference in Washington, D.C., where meditators claimed to have reduced the crime rate during weeks of concentrated meditation. He did EEG studies. He said he was interested in the question. If TM reduces crime, what is happening in the brain that might account for the effect? "Many people are trying to understand this phenomenon," he said. "We used new Japanesedeveloped equipment for measurements on EEG patterns." Lyubemov said he has close associations at various clinics, with the opportunity to work on applications with various neurological disorders. His son is a neurological surgeon. Lyubemov also is at work organizing the international biennial symposium of the Restorative Neurology Association of which he is president. The conference will be in Siberia this year. He also has a number of papers on studies due for publication in scientific journals, with a focus on the "normal" brain, "sick" brain. He said the brain normally has untapped capacity, but the capability of having unused pathways stimulated. "We know things as our society points them out to us in socialization," he said. "But the brain can grow. It is a part of evolution." A still more provocative thesis is the idea that the vibrations created by the tiny signals sent out by neural cells have the potential of affecting what generally is considered to be the immutable DNA. Printed with permission of The Fairfield Ledger. |
