Prof. Bindu Kutty

NIMHANS Banglore

Abstract:

Consciousness refers to the qualitative internal state of our subjective awareness and experience. Deciphering the neurobiology of consciousness, ie. to decipher, how our experience emerges from brain activity, remains a scientific challenge even today. Neuroscientists study the complexity of brain functions especially the EEG dynamics to see how changes in EEG dynamics bring qualitative changes associated with dynamics of self -awareness. Thus, to decipher consciousness, we need to follow a reductionistic approach –from the vantage point of an individual consciousness only. Even by this approach we get to understand many dimensions of mind from mind wandering to achieving non duality, dissociation of self from other metal attributes and its neural correlates etc.

My team, at the Center for Consciousness studies, NIMHANS , uses meditation studies as a model to understand such dynamics of mind owing to its ability to induce various aspects of experience dependent brain plasticity. Enhanced theta and alpha activity have been shown to be an index meditation proficiency and is considered as the neurophysiological signatures of trait characteristics of meditation proficiency. Enhanced theta activity is an indication of sustained attention and awareness, positive emotion, feeling of happiness, enhanced self-Regulation, decreased self-referential processing and enhanced objective stance towards oneself. Two psychological processes are thought to underlie the evolutionary process of mental transformation in advanced meditators - they diminish the distinction between ‘self and other’ and increase the sense of oneness. These processes are experiential defusion (detachment from the contents of consciousness) and cognitive dereification (reduction of the experience of the narrative self and its perceptions as accurate portrayal of reality). How meditation practices alter the brain oscillatory dynamics to attain such meta cognitive states? How such changes in brain oscillation bring or lead to behavioural and experiential transformations? May be much nuanced approaches such as psychometric studies together with neuro- phenomenological approaches, would enable such possibilities. Overall, meditation practices and proficiency across traditions are important determinants of experiencing met awareness. It is imperative to undertake much nuanced neuro-phenomenological approaches to explore the neural correlates of transformation of self in health and disease states.

Bio:
Dr. Bindu M. Kutty is Senior Professor of Neurophysiology, Dean of Basic Sciences, and Officer-in-Charge for Centre for Consciousness Studies of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bangalore, India. She has twenty-seven years of teaching and research experience in neurophysiology at the Institute and served as former professor and head of the Department of Neurophysiology guiding and co-guiding 34 students during her tenure. She established the Centre for Consciousness Studies at NIMHANS in 2019 with a mission to build a platform for undertaking multidisciplinary research in the domains of science, humanities and culture pertaining to consciousness by integrating Indian philosophical wisdom with neuroscience.