Dalai Lama to Visit University of Wisconsin-Madison Neurolab 15-16 May - Free Tickets Available

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Waisman Center will welcome His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to its public grand-opening celebration Saturday-Sunday, May 15-16.

The Dalai Lama will join Davidson in a public dialogue at 2:15 p.m. on Sunday, May 16, at Madison's Overture Center for the Arts. Daniel Goleman, best-selling author of "Emotional Intelligence" and "Ecological Intelligence" will moderate the conversation, "Investigating Healthy Minds." Gov. Jim Doyle will deliver opening remarks, followed by a special musical performance by Madison Youth Choirs.

Free tickets available soon.

Dalai Lama to Visit University of Wisconsin-Madison Neurolab 15-16 May.

A Problem in the Philosophy of Neuroscience: Introspection

Neuroscience has a problem. It may appear to be a mere philosophical problem but has practical implications for the broader philosophy of science and the scientific method.

One of the big projects is the correlation between states of the brain and states of mind. It isn't the only project but it is an important one. On one side of the equation we have a battery of biological, chemical and physical data regarding neurological activity at the level of the neuron and brain plus possibly other physiological processes. This domain poses few problems in producing data that is acceptable as employing a scientific method. On the other side of this correlation we have what can variously be called states of mind, states of consciousness, cognitive experiences or just plain experiences. And more often than not, the only access the neuroscientist has to such experiences is to ask the person. Introspection is back as a scientific method!

A Problem in the Philosophy of Neuroscience: Introspection

Welcome to the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

Welcome to the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

I know, this sounds like a New Age flake factory... but it isn't.

Located within the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we are a research Center dedicated to creating a world in which healthy qualities of mind flourish. The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, through hard-nosed basic and translational scientific research, will help to pave the way toward more widespread incorporation of methods and practices to nourish positive qualities of mind throughout society. The work and research of this Center are at the forefront of the scientific and scholarly communities, and have led to the development of a new hybrid discipline – contemplative neuroscience. In a global era where individuals, communities and the world are reconnecting with the pursuit of happiness, well-being and contentment and seeking innovative and mindful solutions to achieve it, the Center offers facts about interventions and methods grounded both in research and the wisdom of contemplative traditions.

They even have Einstein sounding like Gautama Buddha.

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
- Albert Einstein, 1921

The director, Richard Davidson, has already done research on the brainwaves of Tibetan monks in meditation, so will be interesting to see what they do next.

How Brainwaves and Neurons Interact

This is a controversial issue, but some light is starting to be shone in this direction. Many neuroscientists assume that the electric fields generated by neurons are too weak to have any effect on their neighbours. However, recent research (Radman et al., 2007) has shown that weak electric fields (<5 V/m) within a broad spectrum of operating brain frequencies affect the firing properties of individual neurons. The researchers show that the nonlinear properties of an individual neuron can 'amplify' the effects of such small fields, effectively 'resonating' with the extracellular field. [...]

The researchers are thus fully aware of the importance of their findings in that they provide a framework within which others can develop neuro-therapies, as well as for researchers looking at the effects of environmental electromagnetic radiation. Add to that the not insignificant contribution to how the brain really functions! So much so that an open letter is appended to the research paper by David M. Alexander, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan. "As reported by Massimini et al. (2004), slow-wave sleep EEG has been shown to take the form of a global spatio-temporal wave. Such waves are able to act as an 'external' source of electric fields to individual minicolumns in the cortex. There is now sufficient evidence to outline the case that large-scale electrical field dynamics do indeed play a causal role in brain activity, and to propose confirmatory experiments." The letter is also interesting in that it lists other papers that add weight to the Radman experiments, one paper going all the way back to 1984. Alexander sounds like a converted skeptic as he also quotes:"our [Radman et al.] results challenge the common view that extracellular slow potential oscillations represent mere epiphenomena without physiological significance per se."

Is This How Brain Waves And Neurons Create Consciousness?

Is Science a Belief? Is Religion a Science? Recent Research

Two ground-breaking papers from researchers at UCLA start to shed some light on the nature of belief: “The Neural Correlates of Religious and Nonreligious Belief” and “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief and Uncertainty”. The “fMRI of Belief” concentrates on the initial results whereas the “Neural Correlates” paper looks more deeply at the implications for religious beliefs.

Our reactions to statements are mediated by emotional responses, so much so that such reactions happen for both religious and non-religious propositions. It is as if the mind trains itself to create a meaningful map by correlating truth and falsehood with pleasure and pain respectively. But does this then mean that both religions and the sciences are just belief systems sustained by emotional responses? Are we thereby just addicted to our prejudices?


Is Science a Belief? Is Religion a Science?

Selective brain damage modulates human spirituality

New research provides fascinating insight into brain changes that might underlie alterations in spiritual and religious attitudes. The study, published by Cell Press in the February 11 issue of the journal Neuron, explores the neural basis of spirituality by studying patients before and after surgery to remove a brain tumor. Although it is well established that all behaviors and experiences, spiritual or otherwise, must originate in the brain, true empirical exploration of the neural underpinnings of spirituality has been challenging. However, recent advances in neuroscience have started to make the complex mental processes associated with religion and spirituality more accessible.

The group found that selective damage to the left and right posterior parietal regions induced a specific increase in self-transcendence (ST). "Our symptom-lesion mapping study is the first demonstration of a causative link between brain functioning and ST," offers Dr. Urgesi. "Damage to posterior parietal areas induced unusually fast changes of a stable personality dimension related to transcendental self-referential awareness. Thus, dysfunctional parietal neural activity may underpin altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviors."



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