blog on neurotheolgy

[h0bby1]

Numenware, a blog about neurotheology neurotheology nice reading =)

“Life’s experiences add molecular switches to the genes that control our brain activity,” is the subhead on an article in a recent issue of SciAm Mind. The article presents the new field known as epigenetics, which holds that experience can cause chemical changes that boost or depress the expression of certain genes. This is a rich potential mechanism for describing interaction of nature and nurture in general, but in particular the progress of spiritual development associated with ongoing practices such as Zen meditation. Simply put, meditation practice could have chemical effects such as attaching methyl groups to genes, which quiets the gene by interfering with the ability of the RNA-based transcription mechanism. Or it could attach acetyl groups with the opposite effect, letting the genes express themselves more easily.

[Cebren Girinis]

Awesome! You might also consider checking out "Methylation" which deals with the same thing.

[h0bby1]

they speak about it somewhere i'll check this they show various relation with chemical and spiritual experiences =) i liked the one on ketamine it is thing i used once without knowing it, i remember it !! lol i always considered it was really too strong drug for me , some friend kinda use it a lot =) it is fun they say it is a great substance for spiritual experience, it is true that it is a powerfull substance, they use it in india =)

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Ketamine and God

Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 How does the drug ketamine bring on visions of God?
Ketamine (Wikipedia) is a veterinary anesthetic. It is also a well-known party drug, known as “Special-K”, related to angel dust. But the drug, developed in the ‘60s, can also send users into other worlds or gave them visions of God, as soldiers in Vietnam discovered when administered the drug as a battlefield anesthetic. Austin quotes one researcher who describes ketamine as yielding a model near-death experience. Some patients report hearing voices, having out-of-body experiences, or losing their sense of self and connection to reality. Large doses can send the users into a so-called K-hole where they perceive, deep inside the mind, ineffable other worlds and dimensions.
An article in the NYT caught my eye when I saw it talked about a study showing that ketamine was a quick-acting antidepressant as well. Scientists had known that it had antidepressant effects in animals (how do you tell a cat is depressed or not?), but had not tried it on humans until now. The study showed immediate (as little as two hours) antidepressive effects, which lasted a week, when the drug was given at sub-anesthetic doses. Apparently the subjects first went off on a little mini-trip, then found themselves undepressed when they got back. This research was done under the auspices of the NIMH; here is the press release
The neurological mechanisms underlying the effect of ketamine are relatively well-known. It is an NMDA receptor antagonist, meaning it blocks the NMDA receptors, found mainly in the hippocampus (which is why it affects memory; many ketamine users cannot remember their trips), and the prefrontal cortex (hence its profound impact on thought). Normally NMDA receptors receive signals of glutamate, the most common neurotransmitter. Irregularities in glutamate function are associated with epilepsy, among other disorders, and may also be responsible in part for depression.
What is missing is any overarching theory of how ketamine could simuiltaneously cause God-like hallucinations and assuage depression, or what the relationship, if any, between the two effects might be. Such a theory would be a key contribution to the biology of religion.

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but i only took ketamine once, and it was like a suprise because i was not expecting it to be ketamine and i was very confused and kinda stressed and more wanted to come back quickly and i didn't really pushed the experience too much more tried to go back to normal reality lol i don't like the feeling to loose control over my body like this lol but i was fun ! maybe i'll try another time more quietly with more progressive dosage lol

but well several interesting article on several chemical of the brain and spiritual experience even not induced by drugs or anything =)

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Can drugs contribute to enlightenment?

Friday, July 14th, 2006 Clearly drugs cannot contribute to enlightenment. Right? According to James Austin’s new book, “Zen-Brain Reflections,” which I posted on here, zig-zag Zen is a “cultural aberration”, the term “entheogen” “camouflages” “ungodly hallucinations”, LSD causes bad trips, which studies such as Pahnke’s ignored, drugs amplify delusion, LSD is dangerous because it promotes the idea that reality is something to be maninpulated rather than accepted…and may leave you nuts, and on and on. He quotes Blake negatively, saying that his statement that “if the doors of perception were cleaned” involves a “very big if”.
The biology of religion, however, provides a different perspective. It says that meditation or other spiritual practices cause plasticity-based changes in the brain which promote well-being and/or happiness. There should be no difference if those same changes are occasioned by drugs. There are no a priori grounds for asserting that drugs could not produce equivalent changes in the brain, behavior, and state of life.
Leaving aside arguments along the lines of “I meditated for 20 years to get where I am and I’ll be damned if someone can get there overnight by ingesting psilocybin,” we must examine carefully the arguments for or against drugs being a positive element in spiritual development.
One counterargument is that drugs produce a one-time effect which quickly wears off. But kensho is also a one-time effect, which must be built upon, and there is no obvious reason why drug-induced experiences could not be similarly built upon. Indeed, all of our experiences are “one-time.”
Others argue that drug-based enlightenment experiences simply cannot, by definition, measure up to the “real thing.” But why not, if they are functionally or descriptively identical?
Let’s approach this scientifically. Assume that there is an inherent temporal limitation in the ability of the brain to adapt. In other words, certain types of brain changes require a specific, finite amount of time to take effect. This would seem to support a model of only meditation one, two, four, eight, or sixteen hours a day over years or decades being capable of causing those changes. That may well be the case. But people making this argument provide no neuroscientific evidence whatsoever concerning such required durations for neural modifications. It could just as easily be the case that drugs could in fact accelerate such structural changes in the brain. Or, perhaps extended, incremental drug use could yield equivalent neural restructuring: four pills a day instead of four meditation periods.
An argument with which I can agree is that some people may view drugs as a shortcut, and imagine that they can achieve happiness and understanding through their weekly trip, without bothering to take responsibility to work through issues and manage their own spiritual development. But that is certainly not an indictment of a drug-based approach per se, only of how a certain subset of people try to take advantage of it.
At the end of the day, it seems counterintuitive that selective, disciplined use of psychopharmaceuticals could not play a role in a program of spiritual evolution. Dogen’s zazen has been passed on nearly unchanged for close to a millenium; certainly there is room for the blessings of modern science now to make their contribution.

hehe

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Science and Buddhism on craving and suffering

Sunday, May 7th, 2006 The magazine Utne has a series of articles in its June 2006 issue relating to topics such as neuroethics and neural implants. The one of interest to us, Saffron Robes and Lab Coats, discusses a recent Stanford forum entitled Craving, Suffering and Choice: Spiritual and Scientific Explorations of Human Experience, attended by the Dalai Lama, and presents some useful insights on the science and religion debate, specifically on the approach to craving and suffering. Quotes:
“The scientists and the Buddhists agreed that the type of craving that leads to an unhealthy life is a misapprehension of reality—desire taken to a destructive level. Buddhist practice holds that the correct view of reality comes through contemplation, while neurosicence focuses on localizing the brain activity associated with craving…”
“While their approaches to suffering may sound different, Mobley [William Mobley, director of Stanford’s Neuroscience Institute] said, neuroscience and Buddhism both acknowledge the Four Noble Truths regarding suffering. There is the fact of suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path to end suffering.”

and what would be neurotheology without the famous :

Mystical mushrooms

Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 The journal Psychopharmacology reports on a fascinating study claiming that psilocybin-induced trips are indistinguishable from “true” mystical experiences and have long-lasting, positive effects. Leading the study was Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Roland Griffiths.
60% of the 36 educated, adult participants in the study had so-called complete mystical experience, based on tests such as the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire, which measures feelings of internal and external unity, transcendance, ineffability, sense of sacredness, noetic quality, and mood of joy/peace/love.
One third of the participants reported the experience was the most meaningful of their life, with an additional 50% placing it among the top five such experiences.
An intriguing aspect of the study was that friends and family of the subject were also interviewed, several months after the experiment, reporting sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior.
The study was random and double-blind, but of course any study like this will have built-in assumptions. In this case the subjects were regular participants in religious or spiritual activities, which might have made them more prone to ascribe religious significance of personal meaning to the experience. They were also first-time users of hallucinogens.
In an editorial accompanying the article, Harriet de Wit notes (my paraphrase):

It may be time now to recognize these extraordinary subjective experiences. The Griffiths study is unique in applying rigorous, modern methods of psychopharmacological research and in studying the lasting, life-changing effects that have been attributed to such experiences. It will likely take an important place in the history of human psychopharmacology research. We would do well to be prepared to consider the entire scope of human experience and behavior as legitimate targets for systematic and ethical scientific
investigation.

So, is this “God in a pill”? In interviews, Griffiths said answering questions of religion or spirituality “far exceeds the scope of studies like these. We know that there were brain changes that corresponded to a primary mystical experience,” he said. “But that finding—as precise as it may get—will in no way inform us about the metaphysical question of the existence of a higher power.” He likened scientific attempts to seek God in the human brain to experiments where scientists watch the neurological activity of people eating ice cream. “You could define exactly what brain areas lit up and how they interplay, but that shouldn’t be used as an argument that chocolate ice cream does or doesn’t exist,” Griffiths said.
Anticipating a common objection, the researcher noted “My guess is that there will be people saying ‘You’re looking for a spiritual shortcut’”. He stressed that the drug is no replacement for the mental health benefits of continuous personal reflection: “There’s all the difference in the world between a spiritual experience and a spiritual life.”
See Google News for other reports.
In a future post I’ll ruminate on whether psychoactive drugs can be an element of spiritual development.