If consciousness is immaterial, why does ultrasound boost mindfulness?

I realize that those who believe that consciousness is immaterial are pretty much immune to the evidence that it is a physical phenomenon. 

That evidence is ubiquitous, as I've pointed out many times in blog posts. Anesthesia makes us unconscious. So does being hit on the head with a baseball bat. Caffeine makes consciousness more alert. MDMA ("Ecstasy") makes consciousness feel more loving. 

The October 2024 issue of Scientific American has a short article that presents more evidence for the physical nature of consciousness. Being a daily meditator for most of my life -- I started meditating in 1969 -- I know how difficult it can be to keep the unruly mind under a semblance of control.

The article describes how ultrasound stimulation of a certain part of the brain was able to produce a state of heightened mindfulness.

Again, this isn't exactly breaking news, aside from the ultrasound part. I experienced heightened mindfulness when I worked the night shift at a San Jose fruit cannery one summer during my college years. I hated my job of hosing fruit pulp that dropped from overhead conveyor belts into floor drains. It was wet and messy work.

But after "lunch" at midnight, or whenever it was, I'd take a Benzedrine tablet. This amphetamine changed my mood completely. Now I found my job to be highly enjoyable. All that had changed was a chemical that affected my brain by enabling it to focus much better.

Ultrasound can affect the brain also. Here's the article.

Even when you aren’t doing anything, your brain is relentlessly active—daydreaming, ruminating, contemplating the past or future. How this mind wandering functions can significantly shape a person’s internal conscious experience.

In a recent study of 30 participants, researchers applied low-­intens­ity ultrasound waves to a brain region associated with introspection and off-task mind wandering. Participants who underwent five minutes of ultrasound stimulation reported significantly heightened mindfulness—the ability to be fully present in the moment, without judgment toward others or the self. The results were published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

“I haven’t seen ultrasound technology used in this way, but this type of neuromodulation has significant potential to change how we think about and enhance mindfulness,” says University of Wisconsin–Madison social psychologist Hadley Rahrig, who also studies that state of mind.

The researchers targeted the brain’s default mode network (DMN), a constellation of interconnected areas that become particularly active when the mind disengages with the outside world and drifts into activities such as reminiscing or envisioning the future. Abnormal DMN activity and connectivity have been linked to anxious rumination and depressive symptoms. “You get stuck, where your mind just keeps going and you can’t stop it. We hypothesized that we could use ultrasound stimulation to remove some stickiness and let the network cool off,” says the new study’s lead author, Brian Lord, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Arizona.

Since the DMN was described in 2001, scientists have sought to manipulate itthrough broad-brush methods such as meditation and psychedelic drug therapy. But it remained difficult to precisely adjust DMN function because of its deep-brain location.

To overcome this challenge, Lord and his team used transcranial-focused ultrasound, a technique that converts electric current into concentrated and localized acoustic waves. (Half the participants received sham ultrasound as a control.) These waves can penetrate brain regions with millimeter-level precision and with greater depth than other noninvasive stimulation methods, which typically use magnetic fields or scalp-attached electrodes to induce electric currents spread over several centimeters.

Functional MRI scans showed that the researchers successfully inhibited activity in the posterior cingulate cortex, a key area in the DMN linked to emotional regulation and concentration during meditation. Through questionnaires and an interview, participants in the treatment group reported at least 30 minutes of subjective effects akin to entering a deep meditative state: a distorted sense of time, fewer negative thoughts and an improved ability to detach from their feelings. Other scientists at the University of Arizona are testing this technique to treat mood disorders such as depression.

“One of the greatest barriers to meditation and mindfulness is the steep learning curve. Brain stimulation can act like training wheels for the mind, helping people achieve that deep state of consciousness,” Lord says. “That’s our larger goal.”

Comments

[manjit]

If my radio doesn't contain an orchestra, how come when I switch it on I can hear a symphony?

Yawn 🥱 wake me up when we get past half baked early 20th century philosophising.

[Ron E.]

Consciousness, always an interesting topic though don’t think it can take us anywhere – in the sense of agreement as to what the phenomenon is, in spite of the many theories and beliefs. But here goes!

Perhaps a chief part of trying to pin down consciousness is that in our minds we tend to make it into a thing to be studied instead of a process that can be observed just as Dutch neuroscientist Dick swab points out: - “All recent research suggests that the joint activity of enormous numbers of neurons in communication with a number of brain areas provides the foundation for consciousness.”

Similar with the mind: the term mind being as abstract as the term consciousness. Observations, even our naive self-observations can feel or sense the activity in our heads (that we term mind) as it recalls its store of information – which may or not need to be acted upon.
Similarly with the experience of being conscious. It perhaps would be easier if we referred to it as just being aware, an ability common to all creatures. We can then simply relate being aware as the natural processes of the organism, processes that nature has honed and polished with just one aim – to survive and procreate (all for the benefit of our genes.)

Maybe because of our ability to be ultra self-aware (courtesy of our capacity for abstract thinking and concept forming) we have created the illusion of separation between body and mind which inevitably includes a separate self or me that has a thing we call consciousness. To avoid a lot of fruitless research and neuro-study I believe (think) it more fruitful to re-integrate body and mind where the jigsaw puzzle of being conscious all fits together in one glorious whole.

But I guess, as we are generally insecure creatures and fearful of inevitable death, our concept forming minds will probably always feel the need to mold our perfectly natural forms into something akin to being supernatural.

[Appreciative Reader]

That was interesting, the ultrasound thing. I hadn't known they could do that so very precisely, and so very effectively! Very cool.

I agree with your fruit pulp clearing experience. Won't go into the details of it, but I'd started out in research then, which was very cool, except: we were a lean organization, and the evening/night before the monthly meets, it would fall on us junior analysts to ourselves get ready the many copies of each of the full case documents. It was work that we did through gritted teeth, all of us swearing --- not that we much minded staying up late, we did that most days, but not doing this kind of absurd grunt work. ...And then, one time, I kind of spontaneously happened to channel my mindfulness thing onto this work, and boom! Thereafter, it actually became ...it sounds weird to say this, but I actually enjoyed the work, the rest of that (very late) evening, and every time thereafter that I was junior analyst there, and had to do that thing before the monthlies. ...That subtle shift in attitude, it does make all the difference!

...Heh, manjit does have a point, though. That poking different parts of the brain can affect the effects of consciousness, and its amplitude if you will, that does not necessarily prove that consciousness must necessarily be material. An immaterial consciousness might behave the same, like a TV or radio responding to the volume knob/button. ...On the other hand, nor does the TV analogy mean that consciousness is immaterial, in as much that kind of argument via analogy is fallacious. ...Consciousness is certainly material, absent clear evidence to the contrary, simply basis the burden of proof, simply basis an elementary application of Occam's Razor.