Yoga and Memory

Shirley Telles has a degree in conventional medicine (MBBS) after which she completed an MPhil and PhD in Neurophysiology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru, India. Dr Telles’ MPhil and PhD theses were related to research on the effects of yoga practice and their applications in health and rehabilitation, and she has continued her research in this area since then. After her doctorate she joined the Swami Vivekananda Research Foundation in Bengaluru and had the unique postdoctoral experience of setting up the laboratories there before starting research. Dr Telles received a Fulbright fellowship in 1998 to assess fMRI in meditators, which was conducted at the Department of Radiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA. She has been awarded the first ever Indian Council of Medical Research Center for Advanced Research in Bengaluru to assess the effects of meditation through autonomic and respiratory variables, evoked and event related potentials, polysomnography and fMRI. This was followed by a grant from the Department of Science and Technology to study attention in meditators using high density EEG and event related potentials during fMRI. Since 2007, Dr Telles has been the Director of the Patanjali Research Foundation in Haridwar, India, which is committed to researching the effects of yoga and ayurveda. She has 152 yoga-related publications cited in major research databases, and is first and main author on most of these. Dr Telles has been invited to talk on yoga and its applications in health and treatment across India and internationally, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, the UK, and the USA. Dr Telles finds that the response to yoga worldwide is interesting and enriching; she is an enthusiastic practitioner of yoga, and believes that yoga research can positively impact all aspects of life.