Conferences | "Beyond the Hype: Buddhism and Neuroscience in a New Key", Columbia University, NYC

"Erkenne Dich selbst" Γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know yourself)

Yesterday the Deutsches Haus of Columbia University hosted the conference Beyond the Hype: “Buddhism and Neuroscience” in a New Key.  The conference explored the current discourse on the relationship between Eastern traditions and Western approaches concerning mind sciences and spirituality.  

The dialogue between neuroscience and Eastern spiritual practices has burgeoned since the 1987 founding of the "Mind and Life Institute"  whose mission "is to alleviate suffering and promote flourishing by integrating science with contemplative practice and wisdom traditions". The Mind and Life Institute was initiated from the encounters of the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso with the biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist Francisco Varela, and the lawyer and entrepreneur Adam Engle. The programs of the Institute revolved on finding complementarity between the scientific understanding the nature of reality and contemplative practices. Since then there have been a multitude of studies based on neuroscientific techniques, such as electroencephalography (EEG) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), measuring the brain activity during meditation and validating the neural correlate of a spiritual practices. 

The conference program included scholars from philosophy, social science as well as neuroscientists: 

Linda Heuman, Visiting Scholar at Brown University, Department of Religious Studies: “The Importance of Keeping Differences in Sight in Buddhism’s Dialogue with Neuroscience, Mindfulness, and Modernity”Michel Bitbol, Director of Research at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris: “Overcoming biases in the dialogue between Neuroscience and Buddhism”Bernard Faure, Kao Professor of Japanese Religions, Columbia University: “Should Buddhism Be Naturalized? A View from the Margins”William S. Waldron, Professor of Religion and Chair of Department of Religion, Middlebury College: “Reflections on Indian Buddhist Thought and the Scientific Study of Meditation. Or: Why Scientists should Talk More with their Monks”David L. McMahan, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies, Franklin and Marshall College: “Implicit Anthropologies and Epistemologies of Mindfulness”Georges Dreyfus, Jackson Professor of Religion, Williams College: “An Experience in Meditation and Phenomenology”Willoughby B. Britton, Assistant Professor (Research), Brown University Medical School, and Jared R. Lindahl, Visiting Assistant Professor of Humanities (Research), Brown University: “Meditation-Related Difficulties: A Mixed-Methods Study of Buddhist Practitioners and a Clinical Population”Ronald E. Purser, Professor of Management, San Francisco State University, and David Lewis, Researcher at The Center for Trauma and Contemplative Practice: “Contemplative Neuroscience’s “Truthiness” Problem”Marion Dapsance, Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University: “What It Means to be a ‘Scientific Monk’

I found most compelling Michel Bitbol's presentation; the French philosopher clearly illustrated the relationship between scientific theories and spiritual practices from the fundamental phenomenological perspective, which, by its own epistemological nature, should be emphasized in the study of consciousness. Bitbol also introduced the relevance of ' autopoiesis' (self creation) which was the prior focus of Varela's research. The relationship of the biological nature of consciousness and cognition with the of phenomenology first-person experience ontology is also of major concern when studying the neurobiological nature of transformation happening in meditation.

Although the conference presented a wide range of perspectives I felt that it was lacking the presence of actual meditation practitioners and of introduction to the practices which are the very core of the topics. Varela's theories on the embodiment of cognition and the presence of the body should have also been part of the discussion. My view is perhaps biased —as researcher using the body as a method of exploration and movement as a vehicle of awareness and knowledge production. However, the presence of the body is crucial in any meditative practice, where posture, sensorial perception and proprioception are implied. After all, the body is the channel of the mind.

Logo of the Mind and Life Institute

Exhibitions | Marcelo Toledo "Northern Skies" at The Gabe M. Wiener Music & Arts Library

An exhibition at the Music & Arts Library at Columbia University presented original music scores by Marcelo Toledo.  Containing excerpts from a larger work entitled  "Northern skies, the notation of the music" is derived from the shapes of 21 constellations from the skies in the northern hemisphere.
One excerpt, "Notturno", is scored for clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and trombone, while a second, Luminous emptiness, is scored for flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, percussion, violin and violoncello,

Central aspects of the composer’s approach to instrumental writing include the exploration of new instrumental techniques, the use of complex sounds, the relationship between expression and sonic structure, and the dynamic and interactive process between sound material and its visual representation.

The clear representation of visual materials re-injects new possibilities into the compositional process. A permanent back and forth between sound material and its notation occurs in the representation of musical ideas.  The flexibility of the mechanism of representation expands the musical materials and opens--in an almost rhizomatic way--the intermediate states of the sound/image relationship.

Elizabeth Davis

See the library website for location and hours

"Luminous Emptiness" audio excerpts

Tracking Creativity: the Default Mode Network

I attended with great interest the symposium "The Default Mode Network in Aesthetics and Creativity"  which took place on February 7 at the Italian Academy of Columbia University. My expectations were to find leads to the biological definition of human creativity and also to learn about methodologies to identify creative thinking and "measure" it; methodologies which I could have used or at least reference in my PhD research "Form Mind Body Space Time". I also hoped that the symposium presented content across different art and science practices from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

The symposium was opened by the introductory remarks of the two conference organizers: David Freedberg, the Pierre Matisse Professor of the History of Art and Director of The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America of Columbia University, and Gabrielle Starr, the Seryl Kushner Dean of the College of Arts and Science and Professor of English: Professor Freedberg mentioned how the DMN is a relatively new area of studies in neuroscience and himself has not heard of its relevance until very recently; the prominence and almost sudden popularity of the related research prompted him to organize the symposium.

Randy Buckner, principal Investigator of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (CNL) and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and member of the Center for Brain Science, opened the morning session with "The Evolution of the Default Mode Network". The presentation started with the ambitious question: “What Makes Us Human” and explored the evolution of brain in primates; particularly emphasis was in the role of memories and linking past present and future in the sense of self.

Randy Buckner "The Evolution of the Default Mode Network"

 Nathan Spreng followed with "The default network and self-generated thought: component processes and dynamic control". Spreng is assistant professor and the director of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition in the Department of Human Development at Cornell University; his presentation focused on the DMN in memories and social cognition as well as the complexity of brain architecture in network interactions.

From Nathan Spreng 's "The default network and self-generated thought: component processes and dynamic control"

Yvette Sheline, Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, ended the morning session with “The Default Mode Network in Major Depression: How fMRI Sudies Inform Anatomical, Negativity-Bias and Inter-Network Dysfunction Theories”. The title was very explanatory of the presentation which focused on the relationships between DMN and major depressive disorders (MDD).
Creativity was finally addressed in this presentation: mainly in its relationship with depression. Sheline showed several excerpts on depression from several illustrious “creative” individuals, including Samuel Johnson, Ludwig van Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, William Styron, Kay Redfield Jamison.

DMN, MDD and creativity, from Yvette Sheline

MDD, PTSD and CBT from Yvette Sheline's presentation

The presentation also included case studies on post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and the effects of different treatments on the brain imaging on subjects affected by the disorders, branching from pharmacological treatment to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

The afternoon session was opened by Bill Kelley, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth University, presenting “Finding the Self? Insights from the Default Mode Network”. Kelley’s presentation included several images from brain imaging techniques, mainly from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) — representative of his research on memory and the brain. We learned about Kelley’s research on the biology of memories as well his collaborations with social psychology; of his main research themes is the influence of cognitive, emotional experiences and memories on individuals’ sense of “self”.

Slides from Bill Kelley's presentation

The following presentation titled "What we talk about when we talk about the default-mode network " was a collaborative effort of Daniel Margulies (Professor and Group Leader of the Max Planck Research Group: Neuroanatomy & Connectivity, Germany) and Felicity Callard (Senior Lecturer in Social Science for Medical Humanities at Durham University, UK) . The presentation main questions were “What and where is the default mode network?” “What are the different methods used to probe and delineate it?”. Mind wandering was highlighted as a “core function” of the DMN.

Snapshots from Callard and Margulies' presentation

Rex Jung, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico and research scientist at the Mind Research Network, followed with the presentation "Networks of Creativity" which I found the most relevant to the symposium theme. He asked, in a humanistic tone, the fundamental question (which was not clearly stated in the previous presentations) “What is creativity?” and answered with the four stages "preparation incubation illumination verification" reminiscent of the early investigations by Henri Poincaré and Graham Wallas. Junk talked about creativity as an evolutionary process and characterized as a mental state where the cognitive domain of knowledge meets the deliberate and spontaneous processing mode. Differently from the majority of speakers —who focused only on fMRI— Jung proposes a multimodal imaging techniques where fMRI is used in conjunction with proton spectroscopy, structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging (sMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and EEG. Important areas of investigation were also addressed, such as localization of creativity in the brain and its biological characterization and measurement of creativity from divergent thinking. Jung also emphasized how creativity is a complex cognitive construct involving several neural networks and how it differs from intelligence.

Rex Jung's "Networks of Creativity"

 Edward Vessel,  assistant research scientist at the Center for Brain Imaging at New York University and one of the symposium organizers, concluded with “Art Reaches Within”. His presentation asked the question “What is an aesthetic experience?” He replied with several quotes including  “The beautiful and the sublime taste” by Burke (1757) and "Beauty is the pleasure we attribute to an object" by G. Santayana (1896).

Snaposhots from Vessel's presentation "Art Reaches Within"

Events Northern Hemisphere | Moon Geometry during the Total Lunar Eclipse, December 21

The Moon Geometry | photo credit: daniela bertol

Above are a few time lapse photographs of the historic astronomical event ---lunar eclipse at winter solstice has not happened since 1638.
The "moon geometry" from the earth path is recorded from a stationary point. My tripod and camera were placed near the Alma Mater statue at the Columbia University campus, which hosted the event. The very cold weather ---and lack of better photo equipment--- prevented me from taking better resolution images...but quoting de Coubertin "L'important dans la vie ce n'est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu."

Events NYC | Neurotechniques: New Approaches to Understanding Mind, Brain and Behavior

Astrocytes, from the Cell Centered Database (CCDB)

At the Italian Academy an all-day workshop brings together neuroscientists from across US academic institutions to present the latest techniques in neuroscience ---the interdisciplinary science, branch of biology, concerned with the study of the nervous system.
Neuroscience methodologies and focus of research draw from both physical science and humanities to include, mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science as well as medicine, psychology and philosophy. In recent years neuroscence has greatly developed due to the major advancement of computing and digital imaging techniques, utilized to gather experimental data.

The morning sessions were devoted to presentation of experimental data from different types of neurotechniques:

• Michael Goldberg, Professor of Brain & Behavior, Neuroscience, Neurology, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology at Columbia University, “What a single electrode can tell a neuroscientist about the brain: insights into the problem of spatial accuracy”: results from single electrode recording in the determination of spatial accuracy. Goldberg’s research “specializes in studying the physiology of cognitive processes: visual attention, spatial perception and decision making. He studies the psychophysics and physiology of cognitive processes in the monkey, using single unit recording, iontophoresis, and careful behavioral measurements. He has made enormous contributions to the field of single-cell physiology in awake, behaving primates. He is one of the founding fathers of the technique.”*
• Elizabeth Hillman, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, “Understanding neurovascular coupling with intravital microscopy and optical imaging”. Hillman
• introduced her work on Functional Optical Imaging in the understanding of neurovascular activity; the optical techniques used by her Laboratory at Columbia University include two-photon microscopy, laminar optical tomography, dynamic contrast enhanced molecular imaging and hyperspectral imaging. She also showed visually intriguing images of astrocytes, a cell type in the Central Nervous System; the clearly discernable patterns in the images which made me wonder if there is an underlying logic in their spatial configuration of the astrocytes morphology…
• Aniruddha Das, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Columbia University, “Simultaneous measurements of spikes and hemodynamics in alert subjects: What can brain imaging tell us about neural activity?” Das presented his experiments with fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to detect neural activity in monkeys.
• Adam Kohn, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, “Measuring signal propagation in the visual system with multi-electrode recordings” introduced Kohn’s research on “ the neural circuits that underlie visual perception, using multi-electrodes to measure changes in the correlation of the activity of populations of cells in early visual cortex. His research is showing how the brain could be using the rich amount of information available for sensory processing. He hopes that by understanding the principles of adaptation we will also gain insight into other forms of plasticity such as perceptual learning and recovery from injury.”*
• The morning session ended with John Maunsell, Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard University. Maunsell’s presentation “Multi-electrode Recordings to Construct a Neuronal Population Measure of Attention” is representative of his experimental work “directed at understanding the function of visual cerebral cortex. Much of his work has examined how attention alters the way that neurons represented visual objects, and how these changes improve behavioral performance.”*

One issue, raised from a question by the audience, particularly caught my attention: the derangement of the experiment, due to the intrusive nature of the experiment itself, in the specific case of the insertion of electrodes in the monkey or rats. It reminded me of the double slit experiment of quantum physics.

An electrode array

The remaining sessions seemed to me broader in scope of a more interdisciplinary nature and more accessible to a general audience:

• David Heeger, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, New York University even introduced some intriguing visual illusions in “ Computational Neuroimaging”. Heeger’s research “spans an interdisciplinary cross-section of engineering, psychology, and neuroscience, the current focus of which is to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational theory to quantitatively investigate the relationship between brain and behavior.”*
• Uri Hasson, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Princeton University, presented “Reliability of cortical activity during natural stimulation”. Hasson’s research “focuses on developing new methods to assess both shared and idiosyncratic aspects of the cortical response time courses across individuals. These methods measure the reliability of cortical activity, within or between subjects, in response to naturalistic stimulation. Despite the seemingly uncontrolled task, some of these complex stimuli evoke highly reliable and selective responses in many brain areas.” I found his presentation most interesting, especially in the experiments relating to meaning.
• Frank Tong, Associate Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University, presented “Decoding visual and mental states from human brain activity” which explored the role of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the human visual system. Tong’s uses “uses functional neuroimaging and computational methods to understand how the human visual system represents basic features, complex objects, and conscious visual experiences.”* His presentation was also quite intriguing to me for the mention of interpreting mental states through experimental measurements.
• Winrich Freiwald, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, presented “Understanding cortical networks by integrating fMRI and electrophysiology” Winrich's work uses these methods “ to answer questions such as: How does face selectivity emerge in a single cell? How is information transformed from one face patch to another? And how is information extracted from a patch?”*
• Karl Deisseroth, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, concluded the workshop with a presentation on “Optogenetics” the technology he created, which “uses light to control and tune brain activity”.*

The workshop was announced “to present research and methodological approach from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective.” My impression is that the interdisciplinary perspective was missing from the majority of presentations, coming solely from experimental scientific experiments in the hard-sciences context and lacking a synthesis and critical considerations ---which would have been appreciated by an audience of not only scientists. Also missing were a general synthesis and critical considerations of why certain techniques are important and why the can make meaningful contributions to knowledge and practices, to go beyond the universe of the experiment. Nevertheless the workshop offered great learning opportunities even for an audience ---including myself--- not belonging to the field of neuroscience.

*from the web page of the workshop