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fMRI-Meditation study of presentiment: The role of ‘coherence’ in retrocausal processes
(Bial 34-04)
Dick Bierman
University of Amsterdam and University for Humanistics, Utrecht
The Netherlands
Introduction
The rationale behind this experiment is that presentiment,
the apparent response BEFORE a stimulus is presented, is
supposed to be explained as an example of time-symmetry
in physics. Time symmetry has not been observed in
physical systems, but theoretical considerations by Wheeler
and Feynman (1945) suggest that this breaking of timesymmetry is due to the asymmetry in the availability of
coherent multi particle transmitters, such as lasers, and
coherent multi particle absorbers.
Time symmetry might therefore occur when a multiple
particle information absorbing system, like the brain, is
extremely coherent. Meditation is thought to be a practice
resulting in such coherent brain states. Therefore our main
hypothesis is that meditators show larger presentiment
effects than control subjects.
Results *
A total of 32 Regions of Interest were found by
comparing the effect of meditation on processing of
visual stimuli irrespective of the type of stimulus and
by comparing meditors with controls processing
visual stimuli (these results will be published in a
separate paper).
experienced meditators were trained to meditate in
the hostile environment of a brain scanner. There they were
presented with, in total, 64 random neutral, erotic and violent
visual stimuli during meditation and during a non meditation
session in the scanner (counterbalanced in order).
• 8 control subjects, matched on age and sex, participated in
the study but did only a single session in the scanner.
• Presentiment effects are measured by comparing the brain
activity, as represented by the BOLD signal, before
emotional stimuli with the brain activity before neutral
stimuli. Because these stimuli which are presented for 2
seconds with an interval of about 16 seconds are randomly
selected, the subject, and in fact nobody, can know which
type of stimulus will be presented, there should be no
difference in brain activity preceding the stimuli.
Effect of Meditation on Presentiment
Caveats
For each of the Regions of Interest time courses
preceding the three types of simuli were calculated for
meditators while meditating and while not meditating
and for controls. For each of these time courses the
largest bump preceding any of the three stmuli was
assessed.
The semi-qualitative approach that was used so far
does not allow for sound statistical conclusions. Most
notably, it is not allowed to treat the 36 Regions of
Interest as totally independent. Therefore, statistics
based upon the table should be considered with caution.
Furthermore the unequal number of presentations of
emotional and neutral stimuli could have an impact on
the bump count method to construct that table.
However, this latter aspect does not apply to the
relative effects of erotic and violent stimuli because on
the average an equal number of these were used.
CONTROL
NONMED
MED
All conditions
NEU
5
2
2
9 (11.7%)
VIO
15
19
3
37 (48%)
ERO
6
8
17
31 (40%)
All stimuli
26 (33.8%)
29 (37.7%)
22 (28.6%)
77
Table with number of largest bumps preceding a stimulus in the
interval (-8,0 )seconds as a function of stimulus-type and
condition.
Method
• Eight
Conclusions
Regions where meditation results in larger (upper left), or
smaller BOLD responses (right). The lower figure gives a
cortical display of these results.
A simple binomial test assuming independence shows
that the percentage ‘presponses’ before a neutral
stimulus of 11.7% is significantly lower than the chance
expectation value of 33.3%. (corresponding z-value:
5.6; but see caveats).
Presentiment-effects (over-all)
Exploratory Results with respect to type of Emotion
For all of these regions combined, the average time
course for neutral and emotional stimuli was
calculated separately for all sessions. The resulting
graph shows a clear bump in the time course preceding
violent stimuli.
As can be seen from the table, a very interesting pattern
that arises is that meditation seems to have a dramatic
effect on the type of stimuli that show presentiment. For
the non-meditating condition, as well for the control
condition, there are more than twice as much violent
‘presponses’ as erotic ones.
During meditation however, this pattern totally reverses
and there are almost 6 as many erotic ‘presponses’. It
seems that during meditation the ‘early warning’ for
violence is switched off. Again quantitative assessment
is difficult, due to the fact that the different clusters are
not independent. A chi2 assuming independence yields a
strongly significant result (chi2: 15.6, df=1, p<<0.000001;
but see caveats)
• Brain Regions of Interest were obtained in two ways: First,
by comparing the effects irrespective of stimulus type of
meditation. And second by comparing the effect of all
stimuli comparing meditators while not meditating with
control subjects. The major hypothesis was then tested by
comparing the effects of neutral and emotional stimuli before
stimulus presentation in these regions.
Preliminary conclusions
• Based upon the over-all averages of the time course
showing a clear effect of stimulus type and most
notably on the average violent time course preceding
the stimulus and in combination with the table with
bump counts we feel that we can conclude that the
original fMRI-over-all presentiment results of nonmeditators presented in Bierman & Scholte (2002) is
replicated.
• More confidently it is concluded that meditation
results in a decrease in violent presentiment and an
increase in erotic presentiment.
Next
At present we are analyzing the data for a few a priori
brain regions like the Amygdala and the Caudate. In
exploratory analyses of the previous fMRIpresentiment experiment of Bierman & Scholte these
areas showed some interesting effects which for the
Caudate were expected on the basis of presentiment
effects in skin conductance. Also we will develop a
more quantitative approach to the bump count method
taking into account dependencies and unequal number
of observations.
Key References
Acknowledgments
For further information
Bierman, D. J. & Radin, D. I. (1998). Conscious and anomalous non-conscious emotional processes: A reversal of the arrow of time? Toward a
Science of Consciousness, Tucson III. MIT Press, 1999, 367-38
Bierman, D.J. & Scholte, H.S. (2002). A fMRI Brain Imaging study of presentiment. Journal of ISLIS, 20-2, 380-389.
Wheeler J. A. and Feynman, R. P. (1945) Rev. Mod. Phys. 17, 157
The following persons did significantly contribute to this
project:
Jenneke van Ditzhuyzen
Stephen Whitmarsh
Eva Lobach
Please contact Dick Bierman [email protected]
University of Amsterdam Phone: +31 (0)20 525 6727
Detailed information on this project, methods, materials,
results etc. can be found in the Bial Final Report 34-04