New Scientist - USA (2022-03-05)

5 March 2022 | New Scientist | 47

TDCS, which uses small pulses of electricity

rather than ultrasonic waves, helped induce

flow in 32 participants playing video games. “If

you apply this TDCS to medial parts of human

participants’ brain, parts of the brain associated

with, say, self-referential processing, it seems

to have a causal impact on people’s ability to

experience flow,” says Huskey. He urges

caution, however, as this is the only study

he knows of that has assessed an application

of this technology to induce a flow state.

Sanguinetti similarly says there is a

long way to go before we can stimulate the

brain into transcendent states. He says his

device is designed to accelerate and enhance

mindfulness training, rather than induce self-

transcendence. But he is bullish about the

potential of such interventions. “I do really

see the psychedelic science, the contemplative

science and the neurotechnology movement,

which is what I’m also part of, as creating

interventions that help people get on the

path to happiness,” he says.

The truth is that you might never

experience self-transcendence, no matter how

magnificent the view you are enjoying, how

focused you are on something, or how much

time you commit to perfecting meditation. But

ultimately that isn’t a problem, according to

Yaden, who argues that when it comes to

improving well-being, self-transcendence

doesn’t necessarily have to be the end goal.

“Practising meditation has a lot of benefits

aside from a self-transcendent experience, and

while a self-transcendent experience may come,

and that is usually beneficial, I don’t think that

should be the aim of someone engaging in

the practice,” he says. “Rather than going out

and trying to seek a mental state, specifically

engage in things that are valued and virtuous

activities.” Of course, if you find that you lose

yourself for a moment, then all the better. ❚

Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123

(samaritans.org). Visit bit.ly/SuicideHelplines for

hotlines and websites for other countries

the meditation teacher Shinzen Young, he

pioneered a technique that involves targeting

specific parts of the brain such as the right

inferior frontal gyrus, an area implicated

in mood and emotional regulation, with

ultrasonic sound waves. The duo’s goal

with the technique, now called transcranial

focused ultrasound, is to boost the positive

effects of meditation so that they could be

more impactful faster.

Brain stimulation

The technology is still in its infancy,

and yet the first studies are promising. In a

randomised, double-blind controlled trial run

by Sanguinetti, 48 participants received either

a placebo or 30 seconds of transcranial focused

ultrasound. The 24 people who received the

stimulation reported significantly improved

mood 20 and 30 minutes afterwards. In a

second experiment, researchers carried

out functional MRI scans to assess changes

in brain activity before and after people

underwent 2 minutes of the brain stimulation.

They found significant changes in functional

connectivity between different brain regions

and notably decreased activity in the default

mode network.

Something similar is also being mooted for

the flow state. A 2019 study demonstrated that

transcranial direct current stimulation, or

Jess Craig is a science writer

based in Nairobi, Kenya

who had practised meditation for at least
three years had less reaction in the amygdala,
a brain structure involved in our experience
of emotion, when viewing happy or positive
pictures compared with people who didn’t
meditate. However, amygdala reactivity
to negative pictures was only reduced in
long-term meditators, those who had been
practising for at least 10 years. The researchers
concluded that prolonged meditation practice
was required to fully regulate amygdala
response to external stimuli. Another study
found that decades of meditation can cause
a thickening of parts of the brain associated
with attention, interoception (your bodily
sensations) and sensory processing.
In any case, self-transcendence
through meditation is often only achieved by
expert practitioners who have spent decades
practising this. But there has been a push to see
if the benefits of mindfulness and meditation
can somehow be accelerated. In 2007, the Dalai
Lama spoke about these challenges during a
talk at the annual Society for Neuroscience
conference in Washington DC. He asked the
researchers in attendance to develop an
intervention that could accelerate the path
to transcendence so that he could spend less
time meditating – and more people could
enjoy the benefits.
Sanguinetti, who was in the audience that
day, set out to do just that. Working with

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Highly skilled, challenging

activity can induce a state

in which self-referential

thoughts ebb away