In part 3 we looked at the case of the twins Debbie and Trudy and the fact that it seemed as though events in Debbie s adult life had made changes to her genes, that made her more vulnerable to depression.

But how can we prove this?

With the 30 twins studied, one of each whom suffered depression, it was discovered in every case that there were 5 – 6 different genes especially in the area of the brain known as the hippocampus that we know is important in anxiety and depression and where we know a lot of emotions are.

We only know this now with the huge advances in technology.

It has been well known that negative things like a death can trigger depression, but what scientists now believe is that these events can actually change the behavior of our genes.

The presupposition is that if they can be changed one way, maybe they can be changed the other for a positive result.

We used to say we cannot change our genes but we now know that there are many mechanisms that switch them on and off and we are beginning to re-gain control over our genes.

Michael Meany, a neuroscientist who has been studying genes and personality for 10 years at the Quebec brain bank, set out to identify where anxiety lies in the brain.

By studying the maternal care of rats, they realised that the off spring of mothers who licked there pups 2-3 times more had a much more modest response to stress.

It seems that the more licks influences the genes that protect the rats from stress and anxiety in adulthood.

Something had been modified in the rat’s brain by its life experience.

The other interesting thing is that the off spring of low linking mothers also became low licking mothers, and so the cycle goes on.

This is detectable in the Hippocampus. Molecules that control the stress response, where more dense in the off spring of high licking mothers than in the low licking off spring, which meant they had more receptors to handle stress.

The brains of human adults that had suffered extreme anxiety showed the same changes as the rats.

Because of the information gathered for each of the human brains evidence supported the fact that these adults also suffered low maternal care.

The conclusion to Horizons Investigation was within Molesys result day that would reveal whether we can personally take responsibility and actually, physically change the way we seethe world.

His wife previously mentioned his demeanor had changed for the better over the course of the experiment.

Despite having a very busy and stressful work schedule he also said that he had been sleeping better than he had in 10 years.

Was it coincidence?

The machines would give concrete evidence.

The first thing was to check his cerebral Asymmetry while resting.

Seven weeks ago, at the start of the experiment Molesy had three times more activity in the right hemisphere than the left, which is a strict indicator for pessimism.

Also with the CBM his recognition of angry faces was much quicker in brain time than for smiling faces.

After the 7 weeks of mindfulness training his right hand activity in the right region of the brain had dropped by 50%.

In the CBM his reaction times to smiling faces was also much quicker.

With training his brain this way, it was beginning to grow create a definite optimistic structure.

This is incredible evidence of the plasticity of our brains and genetic makeup and how by doing certain things such as Mindfulness and CBM we can make massive differences to our personalities and to the world we perceive.