Olga Louchakova Research
I am interested in how various meditation styles, concentrative meditation practice, Prayer of the Heart and spiritual development change the phenomenological constitution of the self, including the faculties of intrapsychic ontopoiesis, hyletic ordering of the experience, and egological and non-egological conditions. I am also interested in how the experience of the non-dual consciousness affects our development, and how the experience of natural spiritually active substances (entheogens) affect our attention and cognition. I work on development the meditation –based models of consciousness useful in the neurophenomenological experiement, and apply these models in the first-person based dense array electroencephalography.
I am interested in trans-disciplinary studies of brain mechanisms underlying phenomena yet not explored by science but known to spiritual practitioners, such as Kundalini rising, or internal experiences of light (photisms) and synesthesia (light-sound), which accompany concentrative meditation. I believe that these spirituality-related phenomen enhance human cognitve and attentional capacities, and study them with the use of phenomenological, cognitive scientific, and electrophysiological methods.
I work within the following research themes and approaches:
News
Our collaborative study with Maria Kozhevnikov [link her name to http://archlab.gmu.edu/people/mkozhevn/0] has achieved rapid recognition in US and international media from various fields, including scientific, art and health news and blogs, as well as resources for meditation practitioners and sport physiologists.
Buddhist Deity Meditation Might Temporarily Boosts Visual-Spatial Processing
Science Daily
USA today
Science news
First Science
Medical news
Medical news today
Medicinenet
Medindia
Biological psychology
Current Projects
1. Effects of Visual, Linguistic and Somatic Imagery in Various Meditation Styles: Pilot Phenomenological and Psychological Study
Project is supported by ITP faculty grant.
2. Neurophenomenological design of meditation research. Neurophenomenology Center Development: Pilot EEG study.
Project is supported by Spitzer Family Foundation grant.
3. Dense Array Encephalograhy of the Various Meditation Styles: Pilot Study.
Projct is supported by Zimmer Family Foundation grant.
4. Articulating the Self: Phenomenological interviewing in non-dual awareness and concentrative body-focusing meditation.
Project is supported by the Mercy Center, Burlingame.
5. Cultural Phenomenology of the Heart-Self
Comparative religious historical phenomenological study of the esoteric perspectives centered around the notion of the Spiritual Heart-Self. Project is supported by the Mercy Center, Burlingame.
Grants and Awards
2009 -- ITP faculty mini-grant (3k) for the research of the effects of imagery in meditation styles
2009 -- additional 10k award from the Spitzer Family Foundation for the development of Neurophenomenology Center
2008 – 2010 award from The Spitzer Family Foundation for the Development of Neurophenomenology Center at ITP (120k)
1986-1992 Development of ELISA diagnostic kit for identification of anti-galactocerebroside auto-antibodies. Major biotechnology grants from the Shemyakin National Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, Russia
