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Meditation
skills of Buddhist monks yield clues to brain's regulation
of attention: Current Biology Journal, Jun 7, 2005
Berkeley, CA (USA) -- In an unusual but fruitful collaboration
between Tibetan Buddhist monks and neuroscientists, researchers
have uncovered clues to how mental states--and their underlying
neural mechanisms--can impact conscious visual experience.
In their study, reported in the June 7 issue of Current Biology,
the researchers found evidence that the skills developed by
Tibetan Buddhist monks in their practice of a certain type
of meditation can strongly influence their experience of a
phenomenon, termed "perceptual rivalry," that deals
with attention and consciousness. |
|
<< Prof. Jack Pettigrew researching monks on how neural
mechanisms can impact conscious visual experience
The work is reported by Olivia Carter and Jack Pettigrew
of the University of Queensland, Australia, and colleagues
at the University of Queensland and the University of California,
Berkeley.
Perceptual rivalry arises normally when two different images
are presented to each eye, and it is manifested as a fluctuation--typically,
over the course of seconds--in the "dominant" image
that is consciously perceived. The neural events underlying
perceptual rivalry are not well understood but are thought
to involve brain mechanisms that regulate attention and conscious
awareness.
Some previous work had suggested that skilled meditation
can alter certain aspects of the brain's neural activity,
though the significance of such changes in terms of actually
understanding brain function remains unclear.
|
To gain insight into
how visual perception is regulated within the brain, researchers
in the new study chose to investigate the extent to which
certain types of trained meditative practice can influence
the conscious experience of visual perceptual rivalry.
With the support of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 76 Tibetan
Buddhist monks participated in the study, which was carried
out at or near their mountain retreats in the Himalaya, Zanskar,
and Ladakhi Ranges of India. The monks possessed meditative
training ranging from 5 to 54 years; among the group were
three "retreatist" meditators, each with at least
20 years of experience in isolated retreats. |
|
The researchers tested the experience
of visual rivalry by monks during the practice of two types
of meditation: a "compassion"-oriented meditation,
described as a contemplation of suffering within the world combined
with an emanation of loving kindness, and "one-point"
meditation, described as the maintained focus of attention on
a single object or thought, a focus that leads to a stability
and clarity of mind.
Whereas no observable change in the rate of "visual
switching" during rivalry was seen in monks practicing
compassion meditation, major increases in the durations of
perceptual dominance were experienced by monks practicing
one-point meditation. Within this group, three monks, including
two of the retreatists, reported complete visual stability
during the entire five-minute meditation period. Increases
in duration of perceptual dominance were also seen in monks
after a period of one-point meditation.
|
In a different test of
perceptual rivalry, in this case prior to any meditation, the
duration of stable perception experienced by monks averaged
4.1 seconds, compared to 2.6 seconds for meditation-nave
control subjects. Remarkably, when instructed to actively maintain
the duration, one of the retreatist monks could maintain a constant
visual perception during this test for 723 seconds.
The findings suggest that processes particularly associated
with one-point meditation--perhaps involving intense attentional
focus and the ability to stabilize the mind--contribute to
the prolonged rivalry dominance experienced by the monks.
The researchers conclude from their study that individuals
trained in meditation can considerably alter the normal fluctuations
in conscious state that are induced by perceptual rivalry
and suggest that, in combination with previous work, the new
findings support the idea that perceptual rivalry can be modulated
by high-level, top-down neural influences.
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