Neuroscience and Meditation: Help or Hindrance?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Purser ◽  
David J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Meditation Practice ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Post Modernism ◽  
Style Of Thought

In recent years a style of thought has emerged that privileges molecular biology, in the form of cognitive neuroscience, as the preferred or even only valid foundation for the scientific study of mind and mental life. Despite the lack of progress and honest positive prognosis, neuroscience has managed to create a false but pervasive sense of achievement and meaning that dominates debate not only in scientific circles, but also in the popular domain. This chapter examines how this has happened and spells out the limitations of this approach. It analyzes how neuroscience communications, including popular fMRI brain imaging, function as persuasive discursive formations giving rise to a popular conception that mind is simply a function of brain activity. The implications for meditation practice are considered using the example of Madhyamaka Buddhism. This analysis makes use of concepts developed in post-modernism, especially in the thought of Michel Foucault. Post-modernism has some parallels with and differences from Madhyamaka, and these are explored. It is arguable that the neuronal-self concept strengthens the sense of ultimate materiality of mind and self and thereby impedes meditative realization of emptiness.

Social Empathy

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Segal
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Social Empathy ◽  
The Relationship

This article defines and explains the concept and trait of social empathy and the relationship to interpersonal empathy. Both concepts are explained using the latest cognitive neuroscience research on brain activity. Through brain imaging, the components that together make up the full array of empathy have been identified and are discussed in relation to social work practice. The application of social empathy in the policy-making arena is described, and the implications for social work practice to enhance empathy are discussed.

Studying the effect of Heartfulness Meditation on Brain Activity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pallavi Gupta ◽  
Jahnavi Mundluru ◽  
Arth Patel ◽  
Shankar Pathmakanthan
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Cognitive Tasks ◽  
Logical Thinking ◽  
Meditation Practice ◽  
Guided Relaxation

Long-term meditation practice is increasingly recognized for its health benefits. Heartfulness meditation represents a quickly growing set of practices that is largely unstudied. Heartfulness is unique in that it is a meditation practice that focuses on the Heart. It helps individuals to connect to themselves and find inner peace. In order to deepen ones’ meditation, the element of Yogic Energy (‘pranahuti’) is used as an aid during meditation. The purpose of this study was to determine whether consistent EEG effects of Heartfulness meditation be observed in sixty experienced Heartfulness meditators, each of whom attended 6 testing sessions. In each session, participants performed three conditions: a set of cognitive tasks, Heartfulness guided relaxation, and Heartfulness Meditation. Participants during the cognitive portion were required to answer questions that tested their logical thinking (Cognitive Reflective Test) and creative thinking skills. (Random Associative Test) The order of condition was randomly counter balanced across six sessions. It was hypothesized that Heartfulness meditation would bring increased alpha (8-12Hz) brain activity during meditation and better cognitive task scores in sessions where the tasks followed meditation. Heartfulness meditation produces a significant decrease in brain activity (as indexed by higher levels of alpha during the early stages of meditation. As the meditation progressed deep meditative state (as indexed by higher levels of delta) were observed until the end of the condition.  This lead to the conclusion that Heartfulness Meditation produces a state that is clearly distinguishable from effortful problem solving. 

Are cognitive representations of friends' request refusals implemented in the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices? A cognitive neuroscience approach to ‘theory of mind’ in relationships

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan D. Heisel ◽  
Michael J. Beatty
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Brain Wave ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Prefrontal Cortices

Formulating cognitive representations of others' mental states when interpreting behavior (i.e., ‘theory of mind’) rather than merely focusing on the behavior is considered a distinctly human trait which both interpersonal scholars and cognitive neuroscientists agree plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of social relationships. Although brain-imaging studies have led to huge advances in the understanding of memory and language, theories of social relationships remain relatively uninformed by cognitive neuroscience. In the present study, hypotheses regarding the implementation of theory of mind in a relationship context are (a) derived from extant theory and research, and (b) tested via brain-imaging technology. Specifically, spectrum analyses were conducted using brain wave recordings collected by an electroencephalograph (EEG) monitoring oscillations in the gamma range for the orbitofrontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices while participants attempted to construct cognitive representations regarding a friend's request refusal. Results indicated statistically greater electrical activity in both cortical regions for participants engaged in the task than for participants in the control condition. The implications of the findings for building a fully elaborated sequential process model of cognitive representations in interpersonal contexts, among other theoretical endeavors, are discussed.

Autobiographical Memory and the Self-Concept

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-212
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Grilli ◽  
Lee Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Autobiographical Memory ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Autobiographical Memories ◽  
Core Self ◽  
Insight Into

Autobiographical memory plays a central role in one’s conceptualization of the self. It does so not only by storing the content of one’s life history, but also by providing the memories that are used to construct who we are and what we hope to become. Based on theories and evidence from cognitive neuroscience, the authors of this chapter discuss the contents and organization of autobiographical memory and the neural mechanisms that support the retrieval of autobiographical memories. They also cover core self-related functions served by this type of memory. The chapter closes by considering how the cognitive neuroscience of autobiographical memory and its self-related functions can provide insight into mechanisms of enduring change.

scholarly journals Sensorimotor brain dynamics reflect architectural affordances

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (29) ◽  
pp. 14769-14778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zakaria Djebbara ◽  
Lars Brorson Fich ◽  
Laura Petrini ◽  
Klaus Gramann
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Physical Structure ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Head Mounted Displays ◽  
Actual Movement ◽  
Imaging Approach ◽  
Essential Function ◽  
The Brain

Anticipating meaningful actions in the environment is an essential function of the brain. Such predictive mechanisms originate from the motor system and allow for inferring actions from environmental affordances, and the potential to act within a specific environment. Using architecture, we provide a unique perspective on the ongoing debate in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy on whether cognition depends on movement or is decoupled from our physical structure. To investigate cognitive processes associated with architectural affordances, we used a mobile brain/body imaging approach recording brain activity synchronized to head-mounted displays. Participants perceived and acted on virtual transitions ranging from nonpassable to easily passable. We found that early sensory brain activity, on revealing the environment and before actual movement, differed as a function of affordances. In addition, movement through transitions was preceded by a motor-related negative component that also depended on affordances. Our results suggest that potential actions afforded by an environment influence perception.

scholarly journals The Temporal Dynamics of Object Processing in Visual Cortex during the Transition from Distributed to Focused Spatial Attention

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 4094-4105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chien-Te Wu ◽  
Melissa E. Libertus ◽  
Karen L. Meyerhoff ◽  
Marty G. Woldorff
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Object Representation ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Object Processing ◽  
Electrical Brain Activity

Several major cognitive neuroscience models have posited that focal spatial attention is required to integrate different features of an object to form a coherent perception of it within a complex visual scene. Although many behavioral studies have supported this view, some have suggested that complex perceptual discrimination can be performed even with substantially reduced focal spatial attention, calling into question the complexity of object representation that can be achieved without focused spatial attention. In the present study, we took a cognitive neuroscience approach to this problem by recording cognition-related brain activity both to help resolve the questions about the role of focal spatial attention in object categorization processes and to investigate the underlying neural mechanisms, focusing particularly on the temporal cascade of these attentional and perceptual processes in visual cortex. More specifically, we recorded electrical brain activity in humans engaged in a specially designed cued visual search paradigm to probe the object-related visual processing before and during the transition from distributed to focal spatial attention. The onset times of the color popout cueing information, indicating where within an object array the subject was to shift attention, was parametrically varied relative to the presentation of the array (i.e., either occurring simultaneously or being delayed by 50 or 100 msec). The electrophysiological results demonstrate that some levels of object-specific representation can be formed in parallel for multiple items across the visual field under spatially distributed attention, before focal spatial attention is allocated to any of them. The object discrimination process appears to be subsequently amplified as soon as focal spatial attention is directed to a specific location and object. This set of novel neurophysiological findings thus provides important new insights on fundamental issues that have been long-debated in cognitive neuroscience concerning both object-related processing and the role of attention.

Why the Assessment of Causality in Brain–Behavior Relations Requires Brain Stimulation

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 775-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Silvanto ◽  
Alvaro Pascual-Leone
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Brain Stimulation ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Brain Behavior

A central aim in cognitive neuroscience is to explain how neural activity gives rise to perception and behavior; the causal link of paramount interest is thus from brain to behavior. Functional neuroimaging studies, however, tend to provide information in the opposite direction by informing us how manipulation of behavior may affect neural activity. Although this may provide valuable insights into neuronal properties, one cannot use such evidence to make inferences about the behavioral significance of the observed activations; if A causes B, it does not necessarily follow that B causes A. In contrast, brain stimulation techniques enable us to directly modulate brain activity as the source of behavior and thus establish causal links.

Evaluation of Hand-Eye Coordination Based on Brain Activity

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satoshi Miura ◽  
◽  
Yo Kobayashi ◽  
Kazuya Kawamura ◽  
Masatoshi Seki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Image ◽  
Brain Imaging ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Surgical Simulator ◽  
Surgical Robots ◽  
Imaging Device ◽  
Hand Eye Coordination

Surgical robots have improved considerably in recent years, but their intuitive operability, and thus their user interoperability, has yet to be quantitatively evaluated. Thus, we propose a method for measuring a user’s brain activity while operating such a robot, to better enable the design of a robot with intuitive operability. The objective of this study was to determine the angle and radius between an endoscope and manipulator that best allows the user to perceive the manipulator as being part of their own body. In the experiments, a subject operated a hand controller to position the tip of a virtual slave manipulator onto a target in a surgical simulator while his/her brain activity was measured using a brain imaging device. The experiment was carried out several times with the virtual slave manipulator configured in a variety of ways. The results show that the amount of brain activity is significantly greater with a particular slave manipulator configuration. We concluded that the hand-eye coordination between the body image and the robot should be closely matched in the design of a robot having intuitive operability.

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