Trained phenomenology can be an inspiration for neuroscience.

1. Methodology. Goethe-Newton controversy: color vision is 3D vs 1D. Young-Helmholtz solved this by the hypothesis that there are three different types of cone-cells: therefore one wavelength determines a triplet of firing frequencies.

2. Difference between concentration and insight [mindfulness] meditation [of respectively Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. The first is geared towards better weather; the latter towards a better climate. With insight meditation one obtains a better resolution of the phenomenological data.] An important insight is the seeing of the three characteristics of impermanence, suffering and egolessness.

3. The cover-up model. Axioms

(Experimental work of Lehmann points in the direction of the existence of four classes of atoms.) Feelings provide the gluing and the illusion of a continued consciousness.

4. Hypotheses. The discrete atoms are the subset of neurons that fire simultaneously in the von der Malsburg model. The glue is provided by opioids through volume transmission. Purification can be done by replacing glue with mindfulness.

5. Psychology. The question was raised whether someone with a spiritual crisis and someone in a dissociation are in similar states. (Lehmann gives evidence that in schizophrenics some of the atomclasses have a shorter duration. Therefore the answer seems to be negative.) Some different types of consciousness were presented arising from the discrete atoms and various valences of glue (positive, neutral, negative).

From a neurophysiological perspective meditation might be conceived as a top-down "fine-tuning" of some parameters involved in the neural dynamic. The literature about the relations between EEG bands and meditation is large but quite confused and fragmented. Moreover, the functional meaning of EEG frequencies is not yet well understood and they should be linked more strictly to the brain region from where they originate. Guidelines for future, better designed studies on meditation with brain-imaging techniques are proposed. It would be important to correlate: (I) well-known experimental paradigms (tasks) used in the research on attention, with (II) neurophysiological measurements (particularly EEG/MEG), and (III) first-person feedback (in order to have a more detailed distinction of the subjective states in order to identify different clusters and to understand intra-trial individual variability). Some promising paradigms/task are suggested: oculo-motor paradigm, language paradigm, face perception paradigm.

Meditation studies are particularly interesting (I) to explore to what extent attention and emotional processes are flexible skills that can be trained and expanded in a permanent way (neuroplasticity of human experience); (II) to establish a controlled and refined bridge between first-person experience and neurobiological realization (neurophenomenology).

Preliminary research data from EEG studies on a group of advanced meditators (Tibetan monks) suggest that meditation is associated to a distinct and stable "EEG signature": long-term meditators show self-induced (very!) high-amplitude gamma oscillations and long-distance gamma synchrony. This self-induced "EEG signature" is characteristic of meditation versus non-meditation states within the group of long-term meditators. Moreover, the meditation group shows a stable "baseline" difference in gamma activity versus normal controls. Such endogenous high-amplitude gamma and large-scale synchrony during meditation might embody the "stability " of attention experienced in meditation as reported by verbal descriptions. In fact, a possible model for the causal impact of synchrony suggests that it might be a way for the brain to maintain the same pattern, i.e. stability.

Use of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction in MS patients. Overview of the field. Mindfulness specifically on movement.

Differences and common aspects in, on the one hand, Western psychotherapy, and on the other hand Buddhist psychology, practice and purification are presented. A matrix is given about ways of defensive conditioning and avoidance of suffering on the one hand, and on embracing suffering on the other. The columns of the matrix stand for the questions about avoidance and embracing. 1. conceptualization and categorisation; 2. evaluation; 3. perspectives in ‘mental health'; 4. handling to optimise ‘mental health'. The three rows stand for (i) typical psychotherapy, (ii) typical purification and (iii) comparison: with common points and (radical) differences.

Presentation of mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy. Report of research data showing that it works better for ‘chronic' (more than two previous episodes) depressed people than for people with one or two episodes. Challenges of MBCT on cognitive psychology: (i) non-conceptual way of knowing; (ii) focus of therapy on detachment more than on adaptation; (iii) mindfulness allows freedom ‘built in yourself' rather than compromises with the circumstances.

Presentation of the Body-Mind problem. Presentation of the following model of consciousness. There is no continuous stream of consciousness. The “Jelly-fish model of the mind” states that there are several independent threads of potential consciousness, several drafts of a story. Only when the person is ‘probed', e.g. by being asked “are you conscious now” some information materialises as consciousness. [Speaker's v ersion of Multiple Draft Model of Dennett.] The potential threads themselves are not conscious.

Neurophenomenology is a discipline put forward by Varela and is based on Husserl's phenomenology. An important distinction of description for psychology is the Dhamma level vs the mundane level. Empathy is the capacity of humans to identify with feelings of other beings. It is necessary for compassion. In Mahayana meditation tradition one practises compassion as part of the path. [It can be developed.]

An N-channel EEG recording over M time points can be displayed as a series of M maps of varying landscapes of potential distributions in space, instead of the traditional display as N graphs of waveforms over time (one waveform for each electrode) of potential differences between each electrode and an (arbitrarily) predetermined reference location. (Note that the waveforms depend on the chosen reference, and that there are N possible reference locations, hence (N*N-1) possible waveforms, but that the landscapes of momentary maps do not depend on the chosen reference – a rising water level does not change the landscape, it merely re-labels areas as above or below the water level. Source localization of cerebral generators disregards offset levels).

The examination of event-related or of “spontaneous” series of potential distribution maps reveals that the change of map landscape is discontinual, i.e. there are brief epochs of quasi-stable potential landscapes concatenated by relatively rapid changes of the landscapes. The quasi-stable epochs in the sequences of the momentary maps, called brain electric “microstates”, show durations in the order of 100 ms.

Different brain potential landscapes (“microstates”) as measured on the scalp surface must have been generatesd by activity of geometrically different populations of neurons in the brain. It is parsimonious to assume that the activity of different neural populations (manifested as different microstates) executes different functions (steps / modes) of brain information processing. Thus, we hypothesized that microstates are identifiable brain functions / steps / modes of information processing, discrete “atoms of thought and emotion”. The hypothesis was supported by studies of spontaneous and input-related mentation, where different classes of microstates incorporated different types of mentation (abstract thought versus mental imagery).

Having parsed series of momentary maps into successive microstates, all obtained microstates can be classified post-hoc into a finite number of classes. The alternate approach clusters all momentary potential distribution maps of the series under study into a finite number of classes, and then identifies a microstates as consisting of all momentary, successive maps of the same class. With either approach, the duration, frequency / second, and % total time covered by microstates of a given class are established. The appropriate number of classes can be determined by a cross validation procedure.

In normals, four classes of microstates were found as appropriate description of the data. Of these four classes of microstates ("atoms"), two showed shorter duration of the microstates in schizophrenics than controls. In a study of two meditators [probably doing concentration meditation, H.B], one of these two classes of microstates ("atoms") showed increased duration during meditation.

Using techniques to measure functional coherence [synchronization, functional connectivity] between brain areas, the data from the two meditators showed decreased coherence in the gamma EEG frequency band, and increased coherence in the theta EEG frequency band band during [H.B.: probably concentration] meditation (theta earlier had shown decreased functional connectivity in schizophrenics).

Dynamic coordination enables more flexible reactions to current circumstances. It includes dynamic grouping and contextual disambiguation, and is necessary to discover and use knowledge of what predicts what, to make coherent choices, to combat noise, and to group activity into familiar subsets. This was made both general and precise using information theory. There are good grounds for believing that NMDA glutamate receptors are a crucial part of the mechanism that coordinates cognitive functions in this way. This hypothesis is further strengthened by evidence from schizophrenia. The NMDA-glutamate receptor model of schizophrenia states the following. These receptors play a crucial role in context processing and are malfunctioning. This causes an inadequate selection mechanism. [On the other hand, being mindfully in the present consists of making proper selections of context and Bill's brain theory explains, at least in part, how we can deal effectively with the NEW in the NOW.]

[Playig the trumpet is ideally like being in a state of equanimous detachment.]