Self-specific processing in the meditating brain: a MEG neurophenomenology study. Issue 1 (10th October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dor-Ziderman, Yair; Ataria, Yochai; Fulder, Stephen; Goldstein, Abraham; Berkovich-Ohana, Aviva
• Is Part Of: Neuroscience of consciousness. Issue 1(2016)
• Publication Date: 2016-10-10
• Subjects: : self-specific processes -- minimal self -- MEG -- neurophenomenology -- meditation -- beta band -- parietal cortex; Consciousness -- Periodicals; Consciousness -- Physiological aspects -- Periodicals; 612.823
• DOI: 10.1093/nc/niw019
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2057-2107

Abstract

Abstract: Self-specific processes (SSPs) specify the self as an embodied subject and agent, implementing a functional self/nonself distinction in perception, cognition, and action. Despite recent interest, it is still undetermined whether SSPs are all-or-nothing or graded phenomena; whether they can be identified in neuroimaging data; and whether they can be altered through attentional training. These issues are approached through a neurophenomenological exploration of the sense-of-boundaries (SB), the fundamental experience of being an 'I' (self) separated from the 'world' (nonself). The SB experience was explored in collaboration with a uniquely qualified meditation practitioner, who volitionally produced, while being scanned by magnetoencephalogram (MEG), three mental states characterized by a graded SB experience. The results were then partly validated in an independent group of 10 long-term meditators. Implicated neural mechanisms include right-lateralized beta oscillations in the temporo-parietal junction, a region known to mediate the experiential unity of self and body; and in the medial parietal cortex, a central node of the self's representational system. The graded nature as well as the trainable flexibility and neural plasticity of SSPs may hold clinical implications for populations with a disturbed SB.