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neuroscience

Abeba Birhane, a specialist in the ethics of artificial intelligence, walks us through some of her latest research on the ethical and social considerations behind artificial intelligence (AI) as it is used the world over. Because human experience is fundamentally complex, ambiguous, and indeterminable, AI very often fails to accurately capture and predict human behavior. What is more, because of its attempts to generalize, we are learning that AI negatively affects marginalized people and communities to a disproportionate degree. Her talk illustrates this with a myriad of recent examples and challenge us to develop a healthy skepticism with regard to the widespread use of AI, all in hopes of creating a more just foundation for its future use.

His Holiness calls for more research into the nature of consciousness, and shares the Buddhist perspective of the continuation of consciousness from life to life.

Molly Crockett explores the stories we tell ourselves as humans and how research proves that our human compassion is far reaching and expansive. Does the collective story promote a shared identity and universal compassion towards everyone? Or does it divide humanity into a purified “us” and a vilified “them?” As we face the challenges of the world today, we can look to history, tradition, and storytelling to build a greater understanding for humanity, contemplative wisdom, and modern cognitive science

Medicine is moving inexorably toward a more integrative perspective on many fronts, as emerging technologies and expanded epistemologies are incorporated into how medicine is practiced. This set of reflections will consider the ways in which what has been presented from both the clinical and basic science perspectives might contribute to this ongoing development in medical care, medical education, and medical research, and its potential for giving rise to more rational institutional approaches to health and well-being, as well as elucidating a larger role for engaged participation on the part of individuals in furthering their own health.

Research over the past two decades has identified specific features of neural oscillations and synchrony that appear to participate in perceptual processes and consciousness. These may be among the mechanisms that are affected by meditation. This set of reflections will consider the application of basic research on neural oscillations and synchrony to the understand of changes that may be produced by meditation and related forms of mental practice.

As scientific research establishes that many “physical diseases” are modulated by psychological processes such as stressful life events and emotions, the mechanisms underlying these interactions have been targets for scientific research. As the mechanisms become more well­ understood, the rationale for using meditation as an intervention for certain types of physical illnesses becomes more compelling and more solidly grounded in modern scientific research.

This session will review the experimental evidence for the effectiveness of MBCT in reducing relapse rates for chronic depression, and how mindfulness might be functioning in the brain to regulate depressive cognitions, affect, and behaviors. The different elements comprising the meditation practices and approaches will be examined from the contemplative perspective, and cross-cultural issues discussed regard­ing content and context and how they may serve to synergistically opti­mize meditation-based interventions in Western and Asian settings.

Functional neuroimaging has established that both non-pharmaco­logical and pharmacological treatments for depression both change the brain, though they change the brain in different ways. This pres­entation will present findings from positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of functional brain changes mediating depression remission using cognitive behavioral therapy. Differences between cognitive and pharmaco­logical interventions will be discussed in the context of limbic-cortical network model of depression.