Brain Sciences
June 21, 2021
Ohad Nave, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, Yochai Ataria et al.
91 citations
A fundamental aspect of the sense of self is its pre-reflective dimension specifying the self as a bounded and embodied knower and agent. Being a constant and tacit feature structuring consciousness, it eludes robust empirical exploration. Recently, deep meditative states involving global dissolution of the sense of self have been suggested as a promising path for advancing such an...
Front Psychol
April 13, 2021
Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan, Narayanan Srinivasan, Joseph Glicksohn et al.
8 citations
Editorial: Neurophysiology of Silence: Neuroscientific, Psychological, Educational and Contemplative Perspectives.
Frontiers in Psychology
2020
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Fynn-Mathis Trautwein et al.
101 citations
This paper is a practical guide to neurophenomenology. Varela's neurophenomenological research program (NRP) aspires to bridge the gap between, and integrate, first-person (1P) and third-person (3P) approaches to understanding the mind. It does so by suggesting a methodological framework allowing these two irreducible phenomenal domains to relate and reciprocally support the investigation of...
bioRxiv Preprint Server
October 30, 2019
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Edna Furman-Haran, Rafael Malach et al.
2 citations
preprint
Understanding the relationship between brain structure, function and self-reports has hardly been addressed until now in meditation research. Here we demonstrate such relationship, using Mindfulness meditation (MM). MM aims to reduce thought-related processes and enhance bodily awareness, thereby reducing identification with thought content and deconstructing maladaptive self-schema. We thus...
Progress in Brain Research
2019
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Patricia A. Jennings, Shiri Lavy
Accumulating research in education shows that contemplative practices contribute to and foster well-being of individuals in sustainable ways. This bears special importance for teachers, as it affects not only them but also their students. Based on accumulating behavioral and neuroscientific findings, it has been suggested that a key process by which mindfulness meditation enhances...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 4, 2018
Raphaël Millière, Robin Carhart-Harris, Leor Roseman et al.
402 citations
In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
October 6, 2017
Joseph Glicksohn, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Federica Mauro et al.
38 citations
The notion that exposure to a monotonous sensory environment could elicit reports indicating aberrant subjective experience and altered time perception is the impetus for the present report. Research has looked at the influence of exposure to such environments on time perception, reporting that the greater the environmental variation, the shorter is the time estimation obtained by the method of...
Data in brief
September 1, 2016
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Michal Harel, Avital Hahamy et al.
FMRI data described here was recorded during resting-state in Mindfulness Meditators (MM) and control participants (see "Task-induced activity and resting-state fluctuations undergo similar alterations in visual and DMN areas of long-term meditators" Berkovich-Ohana et al. (2016) [1] for details). MM participants were also scanned during meditation. Analyses focused on functional connectivity...
Neuroimage
July 15, 2016
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Michal Harel, Avital Hahamy et al.
Recently we proposed that the information contained in spontaneously emerging (resting-state) fluctuations may reflect individually unique neuro-cognitive traits. One prediction of this conjecture, termed the "spontaneous trait reactivation" (STR) hypothesis, is that resting-state activity patterns could be diagnostic of unique personalities, talents and life-styles of individuals. Long-term...
Neuroscience of Consciousness
2016
Yair Dor-Ziderman, Yochai Ataria, Stephen Fulder et al.
100 citations
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...
Consciousness and Cognition
December 1, 2015
Yochai Ataria, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
158 citations
This paper discusses the phenomenological nature of the sense of boundaries (SB), based on the case of S, who has practiced mindfulness in the Satipathana and Theravada Vipassana traditions for about 40years and accumulated around 20,000h of meditative practice. S's unique abilities enable him to describe his inner lived experience with great precision and clarity. S was asked to shift between...
Brain and Behavior
July 1, 2015
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Meytal Wilf, Roni Kahana et al.
Mantra (prolonged repetitive verbal utterance) is one of the most universal mental practices in human culture. However, the underlying neuronal mechanisms that may explain its powerful emotional and cognitive impact are unknown. In order to try to isolate the effect of silent repetitive speech, which is used in most commonly practiced Mantra meditative practices, on brain activity, we studied...
Frontiers in Psychology
2015
Tal D Ben-Soussan, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Claudia Piervincenzi et al.
48 citations
Quadrato Motor Training (QMT) is a whole-body movement contemplative practice aimed at increasing health and well-being. Previous research studying the effect of one QMT session suggested that one of its means for promoting health is by enhancing cognitive flexibility, an important dimension of creativity. Yet, little is known about the effect of a longer QMT practice on creativity, or the...
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
October 1, 2014
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn, Abraham Goldstein
The default mode network (DMN) has been largely studied by imaging, but not yet by neurodynamics, using electroencephalography (EEG) functional connectivity (FC). mindfulness meditation (MM), a receptive, non-elaborative training is theorized to lower DMN activity. We explored: (i) the usefulness of EEG-FC for investigating the DMN and (ii) the MM-induced EEG-FC effects. To this end, three MM...
Frontiers in Psychology
2014
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn
72 citations
Every experience, those we are aware of and those we are not, is embedded in a subjective timeline, is tinged with emotion, and inevitably evokes a certain sense of self. Here, we present a phenomenological model for consciousness and selfhood which relates time, awareness, and emotion within one framework. The consciousness state space (CSS) model is a theoretical one. It relies on a broad...
Frontiers in Psychology
2014
Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn et al.
Quadrato Motor Training (QMT) is a specifically-structured walking meditation, aimed at improving reflectivity and lowering habitual thought and movement. Here we set out to examine the possible effect of QMT on reflectivity, employing the Hidden Figures Test (HFT), which assesses both spatial performance (measured by correct answers) as well as reflectivity (interpolated from correct answers...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2013
Yair Dor-Ziderman, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn et al.
207 citations
Contemporary philosophical and neurocognitive studies of the self have dissociated two distinct types of self-awareness: a "narrative" self-awareness (NS) weaving together episodic memory, future planning and self-evaluation into a coherent self-narrative and identity, and a "minimal" self-awareness (MS) focused on present momentary experience and closely tied to the sense of agency and...
Clinical Neurophysiology
September 21, 2011
Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn, Abraham Goldstein
309 citations
ObjectiveThere is a growing scientific interest in mindfulness meditation (MM), yet its underlying neurophysiological mechanism is still uncertain. We investigated whether MM affects self-referential processing, associated with default mode network (DMN), either as short (state) - or long-term (trait) effects.MethodsThree levels of MM expertise were compared with controls (n=12 each) by...