Returing Again!

I have accepted a new invitation from the Science for Monks program to teach neuroscience again.  This time the program will be held in South India in the Bylakuppe area, a 3-4 hour trip from Bangalore.  Because the trip will take place in September, it is time for me once again to start the visa process.  Last time there were a few problems getting a visa, but what I learned from that experience should make the visa process easier this time. 

Photos - Dharamsala 2014

Due to my jet lag after arriving back in Seattle, I have had time in the early morning hours to edit many of the photographs I took in Dharamsala.  Feel free to have a look at the photo album.
 

Returned

After a 4.5 hour wait in the Narita (Tokyo) airport, I boarded the final flight back to Seattle.  This flight takes about 8 hours and all went smoothly, landing in Seattle at 11 am.

Right now, it is only 4:30 am Seattle time (5 pm Dharamsala time).  It will take me a few days to recover from jet lag, but this will give me time to edit the many photos I took in India.

In Delhi

Made it to Delhi...the flight landed early!

A bit of travel advice for the next time you are in New Delhi.  It is not difficult to make your way to International Terminal 3 from the Domestic Terminal 1.  Just check in at a desk outside the terminal (you must show your old boarding pass and onward ticket) and walk a half block to a shuttle bus.  The buses leave every 20 minutes.  Terminal 3 is about a 10-15 minute bus ride from Terminal 1.

And one caution:  security will not let you into terminal 3 until 6 hours prior to your flight.  However, there is a waiting area if you are more than 6 hours early (100 rupees).

I had an interesting experience getting to the airport terminal hotel where I am now spending a few hours before the flight to Tokyo.  A hotel porter came down to meet me and escort me through additional security to get to the hotel.  At one checkpoint on the way to the hotel security X-rayed my bag.  A security officer asked me if I had a pair of scissors.  I said I did have one very small pair of scissors.  They asked me to show it to them so I opened my bag and found the scissors.  The officer then told me that I could not bring the scissors into the hotel.  They asked if I had anything like a knife, and the only thing I could think of was a reflex hammer I brought to show the monks. When I showed it to security, they were a bit puzzled because they did not know what it was.  I said it was not really sharp and then I demonstrated how it was used.  They said I could keep the hammer, but not the scissors.

The hotel porter then took the scissors from me, walked into a security storage closet and said I would get the scissors back tomorrow.  We finally made it up to the hotel where I checked in.  The same hotel porter took me to my room. As he put my bags in my room, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the scissors!  He never put them in the security storage area.

The Journey Home Begins

Sitting in the Kangra airport; it’s a small airport with only two flights in and two flights out each day.  The College for Higher Tibetan Studies where I was staying is only a 10 minute drive to the airport, so there is time for a quick lunch (rice and dal) at 12:30 pm before heading to the airport for the 2 pm flight.  The plane that I will take out of Kangra airport will be bringing several people from the US who will continue teaching the monks.  I wish them the best of luck.

Star Gazing

Last night, Vivian White, the astronomer from San Francisco, set up a telescope on the roof of the college.  The monks have been learning about the planets, stars, galaxies and the universe, so the telescope was a great way to see things for themselves.  I also sat in on many of Vivian’s classes here and learned quite a bit.  Up on the roof last night, I took my place in line with the monks to peer up at the sky through the telescope.

Today, my last day in India, I got in one last morning of basketball.  The Tibetan students were out on the court by 7:30 am and I was able to join them for several full court games before breakfast.

Now I am waiting for a car to take me to the Kangra airport for the first leg of the long trip back to Seattle.  First stop is New Delhi where I will make my way to the airport hotel for about 7 hours.  Then it is about 8.5 hours to Tokyo.  After a 5 hour layover in Tokyo, I will board the 10 hour flight to Seattle.

Final Lessons

My last day of teaching focused on memory and learning and consciousness.  First, I discussed early experiments to investigate learning such as Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments and B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning.  I mentioned the different types of memory (sensory, short term and long term memory) and the importance of the hippocampus to get short term memories into long term memories.

I also showed a picture of an Aplysia, the animal that was used by Eric Kandel to demonstrate how neurons change when learning occurs.  No discussion of memory is complete without a description of “HM,” the patient who suffered from anterograde amnesia after his hippocampus and surrounding brain were removed during surgery for epilepsy.  This discussion helped the monks understand the importance of the hippocampus in the consolidation of memory.

To illustrate various principles of memory, we played some memory games.  For example, I had the translator read a list of words associated with “sleep”, but the list did not include the word sleep.  When I asked how many people remembered “sleep,” almost all of the monks said that “sleep” was on the list.  This demonstration showed how false memories could be introduced and that memory is not like a event recorded on tape.  We also played the “Who’s Missing” game where the monks formed a circle with one monk blindfolded in the middle.  Another monk left the room and the blindfolded monk had to identify who left the room.  Finally, we demonstrated learning of space by blindfolding one monk and placing a ball in the middle of a large circle.  We timed how long it took for the monk to find the ball.   We placed the ball back in the same location and had the monk find the ball again.  It was easy to see how a mental map was formed because it took less and less time to find the ball each time the monk tried to find the ball.

 

After tea, our discussion turned to consciousness.  I approached consciousness by talking about sleep, hypnosis and drugs.  Most of my talk focused on sleep and dreaming, but I was able to dispel some myths about hypnosis and introduce the mechanisms by which drugs affect the brain.  But to be honest, this presentation was rushed because I had little time.

At the end of my last presentation, I thanked the monks for the opportunity to come to India.  As a show of my appreciation, I offered them a small treat I brought from Seattle:  applets and cotlets candies! 

That afternoon, we all gathered outside for photos...lots of photos.