Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
David R. Vago, David A. Silbersweig
1,324 citations
Mindfulness—whether as a state, trait, process, meditation type, or intervention—benefits a range of psychological disorders and reduces stress. However, how it works and how it is defined remain unclear. This paper presents an integrative theoretical framework and neurobiological model called S-ART (self-awareness, self-regulation, self-transcendence). It explains that systematic mental training develops meta-awareness, behavioral self-modulation, and prosocial characteristics that transcend self-focused needs. The model proposes that meditation modulates self-specifying and narrative self-networks via a fronto-parietal control network, supported by processes like attention regulation, emotion regulation, and decentering. The framework aims to guide future research in contemplative sciences and treatments for psychological disorders.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2014
Robin Carhart-Harris, Robert Leech, Peter J. Hellyer et al.
1,289 citations
Entropy, a measure of uncertainty or disorder, is applied to brain function and consciousness, focusing on the psychedelic state induced by psilocybin. The psychedelic state is considered a primary or primitive state of consciousness, characterized by elevated entropy in brain function, including a greater repertoire of functional connectivity motifs that form and fragment over time. This suggests primary states may exhibit criticality, a transition zone between order and disorder. Normal waking consciousness suppresses entropy, operating just below criticality, which constrains cognition and enables metacognitive functions like reality-testing and self-awareness. Entry into primary states involves collapse of default-mode network activity and decoupling from medial temporal lobes. These hypotheses can be tested by comparing brain activity in REM sleep, early psychosis, normal waking consciousness, and anesthesia.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
Rogier B. Mars, Franz-Xaver Neubert, MaryAnn P. Noonan et al.
807 citations
The brain's default mode network (DMN), typically more active during rest than tasks, is also engaged by certain tasks, particularly social cognition like attributing mental states to others. Evidence from meta-analyses of functional MRI and studies of structural and functional connectivity in the social brain supports a partial overlap between DMN and social brain networks. A DMN also exists in non-human primates. These findings have implications for understanding brain organization and social processing.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 14, 2016
Matthew M. Nour, Lisa Evans, David Nutt et al.
476 citations
A new questionnaire, the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI), reliably measures the experience of ego-dissolution—a temporary loss of the sense of self—during psychedelic drug use. The EDI shows strong psychometric properties, including internal consistency and construct validity, and its scores closely relate to the subjective psychedelic experience. This tool enables researchers to investigate the brain mechanisms underlying ego-dissolution, which may inform psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and improve understanding of psychosis.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2014
Wanqing Li, Xiaoqin Mai, Chao Liu
469 citations
The default mode network (DMN) is involved in understanding others across emotion perception, empathy, theory of mind, and morality. The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) plays a key role, with its subregions contributing differently: the ventral MPFC in the medial temporal lobe subsystem connects with emotion regions for emotional engagement; the anterior MPFC in cortical midline structures helps distinguish self from others; and the dorsal MPFC subsystem connects with the temporo-parietal junction for understanding others' mental states. As social behaviors become more complex, frontal regions involved are located higher, reflecting a shift from automatic to cognitive processing. Posterior cingulate cortex connectivity also changes. The DMN is indispensable for social understanding.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
Gaelle Desbordes, Lobsang Negi, Thaddeus W W Pace et al.
445 citations
Eight weeks of mindfulness meditation training reduced right amygdala activation in healthy adults when viewing positive emotional images, even when they were not actively meditating. A compassion-based meditation program showed a trend toward increased right amygdala response to negative images, which correlated with lower depression scores. No changes occurred in a control group. The results suggest meditation training can alter emotional processing in the brain during ordinary, non-meditative states, indicating that such training may produce lasting, process-specific changes in mental function rather than only task-specific effects.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
Wendy Hasenkamp, Lawrence W. Barsalou
377 citations
More meditation experience is associated with lasting changes in functional connectivity within brain attentional networks, even when not meditating. Experienced meditators showed increased connectivity within attentional networks and between attentional regions and medial frontal areas compared to less experienced meditators. These neural changes may underlie improved cognitive skills, such as maintaining attention and disengaging from distraction, that are often reported with meditation practice. Because altered connectivity was observed during rest, this suggests a transfer of cognitive abilities into daily life.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
Edward A. Vessel, G. Gabrielle Starr, Nava Rubin
369 citations
Aesthetic responses to visual art involve at least two distinct brain activity patterns. In sensory regions (occipito-temporal) and the striatum, activity increases linearly with how highly observers rate artworks. Low-rated artworks actually cause striatal activity to fall below baseline. In contrast, a network of frontal regions, including parts of the default mode network linked to self-referential thought, shows a step-like increase only for the most moving artworks, with no differential activity for all others. This suggests aesthetic experience integrates sensory and emotional reactions in a way tied to personal relevance.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Catherine E. Kerr, Matthew D. Sacchet, Sara W. Lazar et al.
329 citations
Standardized mindfulness practices that focus attention on breath and body sensations may work by training the brain to better regulate alpha rhythms (7-14 Hz) in the primary somatosensory cortex. These alpha rhythms filter sensory information entering the neocortex. The framework suggests that in chronic pain, somatic attention in mindfulness reduces pain-focused attentional resources by altering alpha activity. In depression relapse prevention, somatic attention competes with rumination, as internal cognitive processes rely on alpha filtering. A computational model predicts enhanced top-down modulation of alpha through precise timing changes in thalamocortical inputs. The theory aligns with Buddhist teachings that mindfulness begins with mindfulness of the body, proposing that enhanced alpha regulation improves detection and regulation of mind-wandering.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
October 9, 2018
Roderik J S Gerritsen, G. Band
327 citations
Contemplative practices like meditation and yoga are linked to benefits for physical health, mental health, and cognitive performance, but the mechanisms behind these effects are not well understood. This theoretical review argues that many such practices share a common element: regulated or attentively guided breathing. This respiratory discipline may explain the benefits through changes in autonomic balance, specifically by stimulating the vagal nerve. The authors propose a model called respiratory vagal nerve stimulation (rVNS), which suggests that specific breathing styles phasically and tonically activate the vagus nerve, a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system. The model's implications and limitations are discussed.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
Adam Moore, Thomas Gruber, Jennifer Derose et al.
323 citations
Regular, brief mindfulness training improves attentional control and alters brain activity. In a randomized controlled EEG study, 40 meditation-naïve adults were assigned to either a wait-list or a meditation group that received three hours of training and practiced 10 minutes daily for 16 weeks. Stroop task performance and brain recordings at baseline, 8, and 16 weeks showed two distinct neural changes in meditators: an early effect (160–240 ms) at posterior sites indicating improved focusing of attention, and a later effect (310–380 ms) at central posterior sites reflecting reduced cognitive resource use during object recognition, especially for conflicting stimuli. Source analyses linked these changes to occipitotemporal and inferior temporal areas. The findings suggest mindfulness meditation enhances the efficiency of attentional resource allocation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Kieran C. R. Fox, Savannah Nijeboer, Elizaveta Solomonova et al.
297 citations
Mind wandering during wakefulness and dreaming during sleep share many features: both involve audiovisual, emotional, fantasy-tinged narratives tied to personal concerns, draw on long-term memory, simulate social interactions, and lack meta-awareness. Comparing neuroimaging data shows that both states activate default mode network regions such as medial prefrontal cortex, medial temporal lobe, and posterior cingulate, which support self-referential thought and memory. However, dreaming appears as an intensified version of mind wandering, with longer, more immersive, and more visual content, along with even deeper deactivation of prefrontal executive regions responsible for cognitive control and metacognition. This suggests dreaming amplifies the same features that distinguish mind wandering from goal-directed thought.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2011
Heleen A. Slagter, Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz
295 citations
The adult brain remains changeable through experience, but learning typically improves performance only on the trained task, not on similar new ones. This perspective argues that systematic mental training, such as meditation, can produce learning that is not specific to a particular stimulus or task but instead enhances core cognitive processes. Meditation practices are designed to improve defined mental functions, and several features of meditation regimens—including variable stimulus input, metacognitive focus, task difficulty, arousal regulation, and training duration—may foster this process-specific learning. The authors discuss key neuroimaging findings and methodological challenges in studying meditation training effects.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 27, 2014
Leor Roseman, Robert Leech, Amanda Feilding et al.
293 citations
Psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and MDMA perturb consciousness in distinct ways, offering a tool to study brain mechanisms underlying conscious states. In placebo-controlled studies, psilocybin increased resting-state functional connectivity between brain networks, making them less differentiated, while decreasing connectivity between visual and sensorimotor networks. MDMA produced less marked changes in between-network connectivity, suggesting that the extensive network alterations under psilocybin may be unique to classic psychedelics and relate to their profound effects on consciousness. This analytical approach could help characterize other altered conscious states.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
September 12, 2013
Jakub Limanowski, Felix Blankenburg
285 citations
Minimal phenomenal selfhood (MPS) is the basic, pre-reflective experience of being a self, emerging from self-modeling mechanisms rooted in bodily processes. The free energy principle (FEP) describes how self-organizing systems optimize hierarchical generative models of sensory causes by minimizing free energy. Predictive coding and active inference within the FEP highlight the role of embodiment for predictive self-modeling. This review maps MPS onto a hierarchical generative model under the FEP, explaining key constituents like multisensory integration, interoception, agency, perspective, and mineness. The authors conclude that this framework may underlie higher-level cognitive self-referral and understanding other minds.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Judson A. Brewer, Kathleen A. Garrison, Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli
264 citations
The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is consistently activated during self-referential tasks like judging personality traits or mind-wandering, and deactivated during present-centered tasks such as working memory or meditation. Despite this pattern, the PCC's exact role in self-related processes remains unclear. Recent real-time fMRI neurofeedback studies suggest PCC activity may reflect a sub-component of self-reference: 'getting caught up in' one's experience, such as a craving or viewpoint. This review synthesizes converging evidence across cognitive neuroscience domains, including neurophenomenological studies, to support this interpretation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Kathleen A. Garrison, Juan F. Santoyo, Jake H. Davis et al.
226 citations
Meditators' subjective experiences during a real-time fMRI neurofeedback study align with activity in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), a core region of the default mode network. Reports of undistracted awareness—such as concentration, observing sensory experience, and effortless doing (including not efforting and contentment)—correspond with decreased PCC activity. In contrast, experiences of distracted awareness (distraction, interpreting) and controlling (efforting, discontentment) correspond with increased PCC activity. The findings also generated novel hypotheses, including a distinction between meditating and trying to meditate, offering insights into how meditation relates to mind wandering and self-related thinking.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, Lucina Q. Uddin
221 citations
The default mode network (DMN) is not a single, uniform system but contains functionally distinct subdivisions with unique connectivity patterns. Recent advances in resting-state functional connectivity reveal complex organization within key DMN nodes—medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex—and between these nodes and other brain systems. This review examines how DMN subdivisions relate to self-referential and social-cognitive processing. The authors propose that embodied simulation and mentalizing work together to provide coherent representations of self and others: embodiment engages the same neural systems for self- and other-understanding through simulation, while mentalizing uses high-level conceptual information to infer mental states. DMN nodes selectively interact with brain systems for embodiment and mentalizing, including the mirror neuron system, to support social-cognitive demands.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Sanneke De Haan, Erik Rietveld, Martin Stokhof et al.
218 citations
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) produces profound changes beyond symptom reduction, altering patients' entire way of being in the world. Standard psychiatric scales fail to capture these global effects. The authors propose an enactive, affordance-based model describing four aspects of the person-world interaction: the perceived field of affordances (width, depth, and height); self-experience including mood and feelings; the mode of relating to the world; and the existential stance—the second-order evaluation of these changes. This model aims to specify the phenomenological effects of DBS treatment.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 23, 2017
Raphaël Millière
216 citations
High doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce a profound alteration of self-experience known as drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED), where the sense of self dissolves and boundaries between self and world disappear. Three classes of drugs induce this: classical psychedelics, dissociative anesthetics, and kappa opioid receptor agonists. Neuroimaging of DIED may reveal neural correlates of the self, but results must be interpreted cautiously—they may show necessary but not sufficient conditions for selfhood. The phenomenon likely disrupts the minimal or embodied self, a basic sense of self rooted in multimodal sensory integration, consistent with Bayesian models of phenomenal selfhood. DIED challenges philosophical views that consciousness always involves self-awareness and suggests ordinary experience includes a minimal self-awareness that fades during ego dissolution.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Yair Dor-Ziderman, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana, Joseph Glicksohn et al.
207 citations
Long-term mindfulness meditation can alter self-awareness by reducing identification with a static self. A study of 12 experienced meditators used magnetoencephalography and first-person reports to distinguish two types of self-awareness: narrative self-awareness, which involves weaving memories and plans into a coherent identity, and minimal self-awareness, focused on present-moment experience. Attenuating narrative self-awareness corresponded to decreased gamma-band power in frontal and medial prefrontal regions. Attenuating minimal self-awareness involved decreased beta-band power in a network including ventral medial prefrontal, medial posterior, and lateral parietal regions. The experience of selflessness was linked to decreased beta-band activity in the right inferior parietal lobule.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
August 25, 2015
Anselm Doll, Britta K. Hölzel, Christine C. Boucard et al.
174 citations
Mindfulness, defined as nonjudgmental attention to the present moment, is linked to synchronized ongoing activity between the default mode and salience networks in the brain. After two weeks of daily 20-minute attention-to-breath training, healthy participants completed mindfulness questionnaires and resting-state functional MRI. Analysis revealed that intrinsic functional connectivity between subnetworks of the default mode and salience networks—and at a trend level between the salience and left central executive networks—correlated with mindfulness scores. Additional control analyses supported the specificity of these findings. The results suggest that ongoing interactions among core brain networks relate to the ability to attend to current experience without judgment.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2011
Zoran Josipovic, Ilan Dinstein, Jochen Weber et al.
164 citations
The human cortex is organized into two broad systems: an extrinsic system that responds to external stimuli and tasks, and an intrinsic system linked to internal, self-related experiences. These systems typically show anti-correlated activity, even at rest. This experiment tested whether meditation can alter that competition. Participants either fixated without meditation or practiced non-dual awareness or focused attention meditations. Anti-correlation between the extrinsic and intrinsic systems was stronger during focused attention and weaker during non-dual awareness compared to fixation. Correlations within each system did not change. The results indicate that the anti-correlation between these systems is not fixed and that different meditation practices can modulate this functional brain organization in distinct ways.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2013
Barbara Tomasino, Sara Fregona, Miran Skrap et al.
151 citations
Different meditation practices engage largely distinct brain networks. An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of 24 neuroimaging experiments (150 activation foci) compared focused attention (FA) meditation with mantra-based chanting or repetition. FA meditation activated clusters in the medial gyrus, left superior parietal lobe, left insula, and right supramarginal gyrus (SMG). Mantra practice elicited activity in the right SMG, supplementary motor area bilaterally, and left postcentral gyrus. Comparing short- versus long-term meditators, frontal activation was present for short-term practitioners, while experts showed greater right SMG recruitment and reduced frontal involvement, suggesting they sustain attentional focus more efficiently and engage processes related to disembodiment.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 1, 2012
Manish Saggar, Brandon G King, Anthony P Zanesco et al.
136 citations
Intensive meditation training produces replicable changes in brainwave activity. In a controlled study, participants who practiced focused attention meditation for three months showed reduced beta-band power over anterior and posterior scalp regions during meditation, compared to a wait-list group that later received identical training. Individual alpha frequency also decreased across both retreats, and the decrease was directly related to the amount of meditation practice. These longitudinal changes in brain oscillatory activity help explain how meditation may support long-term improvements in attention and cognition.