Columbus KTC brings mindfulness and neuroscience to COSI science festival

Columbus KTC is turning meditation into a public science night, with free admission, optional donations and a 21-plus crowd invited to the center at 645 W Rich St. The opening session, The Neuroscience of Mindfulness: Meditation and Your Brain, will run Wednesday, April 29, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m., with free parking in the gravel lot next to the KTC building.

The three-night series, The Science of Meditation, is built around a collaboration that has been developing for years between Lama Kathy Wesley and Julie Brefczynski-Lewis of West Virginia University. Columbus KTC says Brefczynski-Lewis has visited over the past five years to co-present talks on meditation and the brain, and that the partnership began after Lama Kathy took part in brain experiments in 2007. That continuity gives the program a rare mix of lineage, lab work and lived practice.

For newcomers, the draw is not just the science vocabulary. COSI’s listing says the talk will review past research and current thoughts about neuroscience, then teach simple mindfulness techniques. The session will also address how mindfulness may affect pain, depression, stress, brain fog and more, making the event feel immediately practical for anyone who wants a clear entry point into breath-awareness meditation and a better sense of how to bring it into daily life.

Brefczynski-Lewis brings a strong research profile to the room. West Virginia University lists her as a research assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience and the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, with expertise in neuroimaging, memory, mindfulness, meditation, wearable imaging devices, compassion meditation and brain-related research. Her work includes a 2008 PLoS One paper showing fMRI differences between novice and expert meditators during loving-kindness-compassion meditation, including increased activation in limbic regions such as the insula and cingulate cortices. She also coauthored the 2018 paper Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation, a reminder that the field has been shaped by both enthusiasm and skepticism.

The timing places the program inside the COSI Science Festival, which runs April 29 through May 2 as a four-day celebration of science, technology, engineering, arts and math. COSI says the community STEAM events will take place April 29 through May 1, with the Big Science Celebration on May 2, and that the festival is powered by community partners, local nonprofits, businesses and educational institutions. For Columbus KTC, founded in September 1977 by Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche and led by Lama Kathy Wesley since her 1996 retreat graduation, the series extends a long-running local practice into a setting built for public curiosity.