What business does the Dalai Lama have with neuroscientists?

When Tibet's exiled leader speaks at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) on 12 November, it won't be about the debate on Tibet's independence from China. But the lecture has stirred up a hornet's nest nonetheless.

Neuroscientists—many of them of Chinese descent—are calling into question the appropriateness of the Buddhist leader's presence there. Petitions for and against the lecture have circulated on the internet, bringing the debate to a wider—and perhaps more inane—audience.

Spiritual science: The Buddhist leader promotes research into meditation's effects on the brain. Credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg

From his home in Dharamsala, in northern India, the Dalai Lama has long cultivated a relationship with neuroscientists, particularly on the subject of meditation's effect on the brain. In October 2004, he hosted a conference on neuroplasticity, where an SfN member recruited him to speak at the meeting in Washington, DC.

The lecture is the first in a series called 'Dialogues between Neuroscience and Society'. “The spirit of the series is to examine legitimate areas for scientific inquiry that involve how the brain accomplishes the full range of observed behaviors,” says SfN president Carol Barnes.

But critics say that the scientific venue is only a cover for the Dalai Lama's political and religious views. “I personally endorse basic research for higher brain functions including meditation, but the focus of public funds should be on potential medical benefit—not promoting religion,” says University of Toronto researcher Min Zhuo.

Opponents also take aim at the scientific credibility of research on meditation. Electroencephalograph recording experiments on meditating monks, recruited with the Dalai Lama's help, are not accurate in pinpointing brain activity during meditation, says Zhuo.

The focus of public funds should be on potential medical benefit—not promoting religion. Min Zhuo, University of Toronto

Last year, University of Wisconsin psychologist Richard Davidson published a high-profile paper showing that meditation can help coordinate the function of neural networks (Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 101, 16369-16373; 2004). But the results, which Davidson concedes are typical of an emerging field, have been controversial.

Northwestern University neuroscientist Yi Rao says the researchers used sloppy controls and are hiding their poor science behind a politically correct mask. “Davidson has succeeded in making it difficult for objective scientists to criticize his substandard research by associating it with the symbolism of the Dalai Lama,” Rao says.

Rao and others laid out their criticism in a petition to the SfN, asking that the lecture be canceled. The petition, posted online on 8 August, garnered 568 signatures over the next two days.

But 23 of the signatures belonged to supporters of the talk who were firing back. Robert Wyman, a developmental neurobiologist at Yale University, argued that the petition is the result of the Chinese stance on Tibet and noted that the vast majority of the first hundreds of signatures are Chinese names. “The opposition to the lecture is clearly political,” he wrote.

Rao counters that 229 signatures are of scientists not of Chinese origin or descent. He also notes that there has been no response by the Chinese government or media to the debate.

The SfN received the petition on 15 August and promptly rejected it. In the meantime, a petition in support of the lecture also went online. The organization also received 114 letters in support of the lecture and 8 opposing it.

Meanwhile, the debate has caught the attention of many nonscientists. The petition against the lecture was taken over by pro-Tibet propaganda and the last pages of the one supporting the lecture is filled with names lacking affiliations to research organizations—though one identifies his as “Homo sapiens” and another as “I am that which I am becoming.”