What is the CIHM?
The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, includes a diverse mix of scientists from several different disciplines as well as scholars in the humanities. Their mutual focus on the study of healthy qualities of mind will be aided by the major instrumentation housed in the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior.
The Center uses the plural “healthy minds” to convey that there are many ways in which to have a healthy mind, and it is dedicated to studying this diversity. The word “investigating” is used since we do not yet know exactly what constitutes healthy qualities of mind. Part of the Center’s mission is to conduct research explicitly examining this question.
The Center is one of the world’s leading scientific groups dedicated to the study of how contemplative practices might play a useful role in changing the mind in a positive manner. If these practices are to gain widespread acceptance in such fields as science, medicine, and education, it is imperative to develop an understanding of how meditation affects the brain. This work can provide novel insights into relations between brain and body since some research is beginning to suggest that contemplative practice may be potentially helpful for some neurological, psychiatric, and health conditions including attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, depression, hypertension, and asthma. By studying how contemplative practices change both the brain and peripheral biology (biology below the neck) the connection between the brain and certain peripheral biological functions (e.g., lung function) and physical diseases (e.g., asthma) can be ascertained.
A center for research
Using state-of-art methods in cognitive, affective and social neuroscience, and modern biology, the CIHM is dedicated to rigorous scientific research, and translating how this research can best be used to nurture positive qualities of mind such as kindness, compassion and focused attention.
As part of its research mission, the Center conducts research on naturally occurring positive qualities, including the development of such qualities in young children and adolescents, and the expression of such qualities in adults and in the aging process. In addition, the Center conducts research on the impact of contemplative practices on these qualities and their biological bases and behavioral consequences. The relation between these qualities and resilience, emotion regulation, and physical health are all topics of active ongoing investigation.
A primary focus of Center research is the impact of training on the cultivation of positive qualities. Contemplative traditions provide a rich opportunity for the rigorous investigation of how systematic training of the mind may impact the brain and body, and have consequences for the development and expression of positive human qualities. The Center is embarking on a series of research programs in both long-term meditation practitioners as well as more novice practitioners to examine how such training affects the brain and body, and also to provide critical information on how to structure interventions to make them more successful.
As part of this effort, studies are conducted that involve measuring brain function and structure using measures derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), peripheral function using assays of endocrine and immune function, and epigenetic studies that examine alterations in gene expression, in addition to objective behavioral measures that might reflect the cultivation of positive qualities. Measures of both central and peripheral biological function are often obtained from the same participants to determine how changes in the brain and body interact to influence both mental and physical health.
A center for outreach
An important Center activity is outreach through translational research. The Center is committed to provide intervention programs for members of the local community including educators, parents, and children. In the course of these offerings, CIHM researchers will collect pilot data to help identify core features of the interventions, to obtain evidence related to optimal timing and dosage, and to examine novel measures designed to reflect different positive qualities.
A center for training
The Center also serves as an information repository for the world’s best scientific research related to the healthy mind. The Center holds periodic meetings on topics central to its mission to develop and disseminate knowledge in this area. Much of this information is made available on this Web site.
Graduate students in the Department of Psychology as well as in the Neuroscience Training Program along with MD/PhD students, can focus their research activity on Center-related research. In addition, the Center is home to post-doctoral trainees and more senior scientists who wish to focus their research on these topics. The Center will also host trainees and senior scholars who specialize in different areas of contemplative scholarship of direct relevance to the scientific research in the Center. In this way, we wish to encourage the cross-fertilization between these disciplines. Scientists in training and other center scholars are encouraged to combine their own contemplative practice with a commitment to a rigorous research career. In this way, we hope to promote a new model for training in contemplative neuroscience.
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