Meditation in the third-person perspective modulates minimal self and heartbeat-evoked potentials.
Hang Yang, Bruno Herbelin, Chuong Ngo, Loup Vuarnesson, Olaf Blanke
Neuroimage July 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121265 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 23 |
| Population | Participants performing guided meditation in VR |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Cardiac processing Full-body illusion Own body perception Self-boundary |
| Citations | 6 |
| Key findings | A third-person perspective during meditation, compared to a first-person perspective, induced stronger detachment, reduced body boundary salience, and more negative heartbeat-evoked potentials linked to posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex activation. |
Abstract
Experienced meditation practitioners often report altered states of their sense of self, including decentering and distancing the self from the body and one's current concerns. Altered states of the sense of self, such as disembodiment and distancing of the self from the body, have also been induced experimentally using virtual reality (VR) and linked neurally to heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs). Whereas studies investigated the related neural correlates of such decentering during meditation, none experimentally modulated the sense of self during meditation practice using VR nor determined the potentially associated behavioral changes of the sense of self. Here we determined HEPs and behavioral measures in 23 participants who performed a guided meditation in VR, either from a third-person (3PP) or first-person perspective (1PP) to modulate the sense of self. In the 3PP-vs-1PP meditation condition, we report immediate effects including stronger sensations of detachment and disconnection, reduced salience of the perceived body boundary, and reduced self-identification with the body. HEP analysis revealed a more negative HEP amplitude in the 3PP condition, associated with activation of the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. Leveraging a new VR-supported meditation platform and methods, these data link the sense of self in meditation practice to the neuroscience of the bodily self, based on short-term subjective, behavioral, and neural changes. The study provides a foundation for future research on whether manipulating the minimal self in VR can aid in cultivating self-transcendent experiences reported by experienced meditators and whether integrating this manipulation facilitates the cultivation of long-term changes.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- Meditating with One’s Avatar in Virtual Reality Enhances Self-Compassion and Perspective-Taking Mindfulness August 5, 2026
- Haptic Meditation Enhancement Device (HMED): An Arduino-Based Multi-Sensor Real-Time Monitoring and Intervention Support System. Italian National Conference on Sensors July 1, 2026
- Simultaneous enhancement of stimulus-induced and stimulus-free gamma in open-eye meditators. Imaging Neuroscience 2026
Cites 57
- How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective Perspectives on Psychological Science October 14, 2011
- Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012
- Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience August 13, 2007
- The Experimental Induction of Out-of-Body Experiences Science August 23, 2007
- Out‐of‐body experience and autoscopy of neurological origin Brain January 15, 2004
and 52 more in the library