Hard Wired for God

I'm probably the last person in the Northern Hemisphere to be catching up with the discussion about The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired Into Our Genes, but here's a good background piece for anyone else not quite up to speed. I think the subject of how human physiology affects our experiences of religion is fascinating. Another facet of this written about of late is a UC David ongoing study of how elastic -- how open to change -- the brain systems that human regulate attention and emotion are.

With electroencephalogram (EEG) caps, attention measurements, emotion testing and a form of meditation practice called Shamatha, researchers hope to answer a key question about the brain systems that regulate attention and emotion. How much can those systems change with effort, how much - in the Silly Putty neuroscience term applied to our malleable brains - is plasticity at work?

At root, the researchers understand that, "The act of paying attention to something, picking it out of the stream of sensations that bombards our brains, is critical to remembering it, said Ewa Wojcuilik, a UC Davis assistant professor who specializes in visual attention. But paying attention can be tough. Give people something simple and boring to do, and their distractibility zooms."

Indeed, I was thinking about that in great details last week through my 90 minutes on the mat at the zendo. Some folks, though, have far greater -- and scientifically measurable -- success.

The UC David project sounds like one part sesshin and one part TV's Survivor. Perhaps the regular updates will be available here.