Contemplative Neuroscience

Catalog description

This course provides training in the cognitive neuroscience of mindfulness, as well as contemplative experience beyond mindfulness. Students learn practical knowledge about research design, quantification of brain activity, scientific writing, and techniques used by contemplative neuroscientists in laboratory research. This includes training in combining neuroscientific approaches with a variety of complementary psychological research methods, including phenomenology, experimentation, task performance, and experience sampling. Students visit one or more neuroscience laboratories for demonstration of brain electrophysiological methods and data collection. For their final project, students design a contemplative neuroscience study to investigate a contemplative practice or experience, including practices or experiences not yet well-represented in scientific literature. Prerequisite: PSYB357e or PSYB368e.