It’s a familiar conundrum with beginning meditators: “I know that daily meditation practice will help me, but it’s so challenging and hard to stick with it!” The team at the SEMA (Sonication Enhanced Mindful Awareness) Lab at UA’s Center for Consciousness Studies are searching for a technological solution to make meditation more rewarding earlier in the process. They aim to better understand how mindfulness works to make the practice more accessible to a wider range of patients.
This summer, CBS Director Dr. Jiang Wu and Senior Fellow Dr. James Baskind toured the SEMA Lab, welcomed by Co-Directors Dr. Jay Sanguinetti and Shinzen Young. Known for his accessible, interactive approach to mindfulness teaching and his interest in contemplative neuroscience, Shinzen is also the creator of Unified Mindfulness.
At the Lab, researchers demonstrated on Dr. Wu a new form of noninvasive brain stimulation called transcranial ultrasound (TUS). TUS uses low-intensity ultrasound to safely and reversibly modulate brain activity, a process called “sonicating” the brain. Participants receive sonication while they meditate and the ultrasound is aimed at a part of the brain that is thought to help enhance the acquisition of meditation skills like equanimity, concentration, and sensory clarity.
For a brief overview of the technology, check out Dr. Sanguinetti’s TEDxBigSky talk: https://youtu.be/rGEjmwaIPZk.