Dear David, 

Check this out if it gives you some idea: 

Article The “conscious pilot”—dendritic synchrony moves through the ...

Conference Paper The ‘conscious pilot’ dendritic synchrony moves through the ...

David,

The following are my opinions as a former brainwave researcher, and most should not be considered as facts. I hope they are helpful when considering the relationship, if any, between gamma waves and consciousness.

1. The burden for showing that any brainwave phenomenon "mediates", "correlates with", or "represents" consciousness is very, very high, since up until now no such clear relationship has been shown between consciousness and any phenomenon in the body (depending on our definition of "consciousness"). The way science works is that it is up to the researchers themselves to show or prove their hypothesis. This may be obvious, but I'm just stating it for completeness.

2. The word "consciousness" needs to be defined. Since some published opinion [http://beyond-advaita.blogspot.com/2011/05/gamma-wave-synchrony-by-junius.html] relates this gamma wave research with the active philosophy known as advaita (nonduality), the word "consciousness" may refer to pure awareness, or to a mixture of a thought and pure awareness, both of which are commonly called "consciousness" in the field of subjective knowledge known as advaita. There is a big difference between a specific thought (such as "I am thirsty"), which starts at the level of the body or subconscious and grows in concreteness until it is appreciated as a thought occurring in time by the mind, and pure awareness, which contains no concrete meaning and does not grow or change.

3. Any proposed correlation between body and mind, or between body and awareness, must be shown by specific experiment, such as those which link an action by a subject (such as pressing a button) with the subject's recognition that he or she has decided to take the action, or has taken the action. Speculation relating to consciousness based on observing brainwaves alone and speculating about connections between neurons or layers of neurons is not science. It is a first stage of science consisting mostly of speculation.

4. In observing gamma waves, the pattern appears to be that of many wavelets (amplitude-modulated pulses) overlapping one another. One mathematical analysis that suggests itself is to compute individual wavelets from the entire brainwave channel, making assumptions about periodicity. Alternatively, it may be possible to distinguish individual wavelets in two or three dimensions by cross-correlating pairs or triplets of spatial brainwave channels. This type of analysis is frequently done to visualize brainwave disruption during epileptic seizures.

5. Care must be taken when claiming synchrony among or between spatial brainwave channels. In the case of alpha waves, the group of cells that acts as their generator has long been known to occupy a localized place in the brain, with signal propagation happening mostly in the large, highly-conductive blood vessels of the brain, and therefore synchronization of alpha waveforms or wavelets across the cranium is unavoidable and constant (everywhere at zero phase).

6. The article referenced above states, "Even the authors admit that the gamma synchronization is just a correlate, and does not explain how consciousness actually arises." What is meant by "a correlate" must be understood carefully before even speculation can be done.

7. Studies of gamma correlation that make use of subjects practicing meditation must be interpreted carefully, as there is no standard mental state of meditation, and no standard technique or mental activity of meditation. Instead, there are many forms of meditation, which may produce subtle differences in physiological and other markers in the body. Knowing that some form of meditation increases brainwaves at some frequency tells us very little by itself. For example, again in alpha waves, closing the eyes (a typical first step in most forms of meditation) is the critical action that stops the inhibition of alpha waves by the visual processing system. Similarly, a reduction in gamma wave amplitude in subjects with schizophrenia tells us very little by itself.

8. In summary, "Whether or not gamma wave activity is related to subjective awareness is a very difficult question which cannot be answered with certainty at the present time," according to the article "Are neocortical gamma waves related to consciousness?" by C.H. Vanderwolf in Brain Research, 2000 [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899399023513].

 Dear David Saeteros Pérez,

Please refer to the research on brain and consciousness within Research Gate. There are 45 publications by Dr. Fred Travis. One particular study identifies three categories of meditation displaying three different brain wave patterns (EEG), Focused Attention (Gamma 20-50 Hz), Open Monitoring (Theta 4-8 Hz), and Automatic Self-Transcending (Alpha 1 8-10 HZ) (Travis, F. and J. Shear, (2011), Focused attention, open monitoring, and automatic self – transcending: Categories to organize meditations from Vedic, Buddhist and Chinese traditions. Conscious and Cognition.19 (4:)P1110 -8).

You may want to read, Your Brain is a River Not a Rock, Fredric Travis, Phd. (2012,2015)

and contact  [email protected]

Good luck with your research.

Adrienne Pelton

Adrienn, I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Travis's work on transcending and other mental effects that he claims are reflected in brain waves, based only on his sophisticated mathematical analyses. When I wrote to him specifically about the source and mechanism of alpha brain waves, pointing out that they are probably independent of transcending and are probably caused by a medial oscillator that is masked by cortical visual processing, he said that that may be so, but that he was not familiar with this theory of the generation of alpha waves.

A mathematical theory of brain waves, even when it comes with the strongest possible  statistics, still only establishes that average power or average phase in a certain bandwidth happens during the specified mental state. It does not establish causality, and says nothing about the phase of individual alpha wavelets, which are easy to identify across the hemisphere. When wavelet phases are measured, it can be seen that although the numbers of wavelets varies with eyes open/eyes closed, the amplitude and phase of the wavelets are always equal and completely synchronized bilaterally, regardless of mental state.

I told Dr. Travis about my research by email and suggested that it might be valuable for him to replicate this work, and I believe he said he might do so, but apparently has not.

"Good luck with your research."

My brain wave research was conducted around 1973 at the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT. I did not continue researching brain waves after that time.

Well-documented research into gamma waves and Buddhist metta meditation can be corroborated by the absence of same when disrupted by "great octave" noise pollution such as generated by tricked-up "music" consisting of overloaded power bass in or near the 40 Hz range.  You might notice, as one writer did, "you can't think."  

Further research is necessary to prove this scientifically.  Meanwhile, try listening to certain music and you might notice the opposite of the "Mozart effect," presuming you are conscious of your own gamma-band mind.   

Enforcing noise-pollution ordinance for mental health purposes is another matter, urgently needing attention.  WOW.  TOO LOUD - can kill.