Ispectrum Magazine Ispectrum Magazine #04 | Page 9

EXPLORING MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES ELICITED BY MEDITATION The investigation of artificially evoked brain events is clearly far from ideal. This fact led the researchers Andrew Newberg and Eugene d’Aquili to attempt to study mystical experiences elicited by meditation in the laboratory. Experienced Buddhist dent or peak moment of meditation – they were asked to pull on a string. Radioactive tracer was then injected into the meditator, through an in-dwelling catheter, and the binding of this tracer in the brain visualised using SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography). Active regions of the brain have a greater blood supply and can therefore be expected to bind more of the radioactive tracer. In this manner, information about the activity in the meditator’s brain at this transcendent moment was captured and visualised. meditators were asked to meditate and, when they felt they were accessing an altered or mystical state of awareness From these pivotal – sometimes referred to as the transcen- experiments, Newberg 8 and d’Aquili demonstrated that meditation triggered two important changes in brain activity. Firstly, there is an increase in activity in the frontal cortex, in the area of the brain known to be involved in sustained attention – referred to as the attention association cortex. Increased activity in this association cortex leads to decreased activity in the surroundin ??????????????????)???????????????)??????????????????)??????????Q???????)??????????????????)????????????????????)????????????????)????????????????)???????????????????)??????????????????)???????????Q??????)???????????????????)??????????????????????????????????????????????????Q??((0