Current Biology
June 1, 2005
Olivia Carter, David E. Presti, C. Callistemon et al.
262 citations
Tibetan Buddhist monks with extensive meditative training can voluntarily alter the normal fluctuations in conscious awareness that occur during perceptual rivalry tasks such as binocular rivalry and motion-induced blindness. In binocular rivalry, a one-point meditation that focuses attention on a single object led to extreme increases in the duration of perceptual dominance, with some monks reporting complete perceptual stability for up to five minutes. In contrast, compassion meditation had no observable effect on rivalry rate. During motion-induced blindness, monks reported longer disappearance durations than meditation-naive individuals, and one highly experienced monk could sustain the disappearance of a visual target for over 12 minutes. These results suggest that intense attentional focus, rather than meditation per se, can modulate the neural mechanisms underlying conscious visual perception.
PLoS One
November 7, 2018
Cassandra Vieten, Helané Wahbeh, B Rael Cahn et al.
124 citations
A survey of 1120 meditators found that most report having had anomalous and extraordinary experiences during meditation, such as mystical, transpersonal, or difficult phenomena. While meditation research has largely focused on clinical effectiveness and neural correlates, these less-studied experiences may be crucial for psychological and spiritual development, act as mediators of meditation's benefits, or be important outcomes themselves. A task force of researchers and teachers developed recommendations to expand research into these areas, which represent largely uncharted scientific terrain suitable for rigorous investigation.
Psychedelics as Psychiatric Medications
March 1, 2023
Michael C Mithoefer, David E. Presti
MDMA was first synthesized by Merck in 1914 but not studied in humans until the 1970s–80s, when it was reported to reduce anxiety and increase emotional openness, making it a possible catalyst for psychotherapy. In 1985, after recreational use in dance scenes attracted media attention, the US government placed MDMA in Schedule 1, banning it for medical use. MDMA's pharmacological effects include releasing serotonin and other monoamines and raising oxytocin levels. Research on its effects is evolving, and links between its physiology and user experiences remain speculative. Controlled clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy began in 2004, focusing on PTSD.
The Journal of Comparative Neurology
December 1, 2020
David E. Presti
Neuroscience has accepted the study of consciousness but largely restricts itself to neural correlates, which may not yield fundamentally new insights. Expanding the science of consciousness requires appreciating the interdependent co-creation or enfolding of mind and world. Addressing this interdependence is part of the collaborative engagement between Buddhism and science, exploring how complementary worldviews and analytic procedures can further an expanded science of mind. This essay, honoring Jack Pettigrew, describes his connection to that project.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 16, 2019
David E. Presti
Henry Stapp has argued for 60 years that the structure of quantum mechanics implies a central and irreducible role for mind—an experiential aspect of nature distinct from physical matter and energy. The paper describes this thesis and calls for interdisciplinary exploration, especially connections with neuroscience and empirical psychology, to investigate mind's role in quantum ontology.
arXiv Preprint Archive
June 1, 2012
Jeremy Coyle, David E. Presti, Matthew J. Baggott
Machine learning applied to 1000 written reports of 10 different drugs from the Erowid website identified distinct patterns in how people describe their experiences with each drug. A random-forest classifier using just 110 key words achieved 51.1% accuracy in identifying which drug a report described, far above the 10% expected by chance. Reports of MDMA were most distinctive (86.9% accuracy), while those for DPT were hardest to classify (20.1%). Hierarchical clustering revealed similarities between certain drugs, such as DMT and Salvia divinorum. The findings suggest that automated text analysis can uncover consistent, drug-specific features in subjective experience reports, potentially aiding hypothesis generation about new or poorly understood compounds.