Toward a neuroscience of consciousness using advanced meditation.
Jonathan M. Lieberman, Matthew D. Sacchet
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews February 1, 2026 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106520 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Advanced meditation Meditative endpoints Psychedelics Theories of consciousness |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Proposes that advanced meditative states like absorption and cessation can serve as experimental anchors to study minimal forms of consciousness. |
Abstract
Despite decades of progress in the neuroscience of consciousness, prevailing empirical paradigms remain largely anchored in the study of typical, content-rich states that are characterized by layered perceptual, cognitive, affective, and self-referential processes. Such complexity may obscure the neural mechanisms that give rise to conscious experience. Here, we propose that advanced meditation-referring to states and stages of practice that unfold progressively with increasing expertise-offers a powerful yet unexplored opportunity to isolate the core features of consciousness through a theory-driven neuroscience approach. We focus on two classes of meditative phenomena: advanced concentrative absorption (related to what have been called jhāna), which involves the preservation of highly abstract forms of awareness alongside the attenuation of typical features of consciousness; and meditative endpoints-namely, cessation events (related to what have been called nirodha)-which involve the temporary suspension of consciousness altogether. These phenomena serve as precise, replicable, and experimentally tractable phenomenological anchors for a minimal model framework, a novel approach aimed at identifying and characterizing the simplest possible form of conscious experience as a principled starting point for a systematic science of consciousness. Within this framework, the integration of advanced meditation into experimental paradigms offers a promising path toward identifying the neural mechanisms that support consciousness in its most reduced and fundamental forms.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
Cites 96
- Detecting Awareness in the Vegetative State Science September 7, 2006
- Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems Nature Reviews Neuroscience April 20, 2016
- Breakdown of Cortical Effective Connectivity During Sleep Science September 29, 2005
- Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto Biological Bulletin December 1, 2008
- The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2014
and 91 more in the library