Suspending the embodied self in meditation attenuates beta oscillations in posterior medial cortex
Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, Yoav Schweitzer, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Ohad Nave, Yochai Ataria, Stephen Fulder, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana
February 13, 2023 preprint DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/8k76z (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Preregistered experimental study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 46 |
| Population | Long-term meditators |
| Intervention | Advanced meditative states |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Embodied cognition Agency philosophy Cognitive psychology Sense of agency Perspective graphical Psychology of self Consciousness Epistemology Artificial intelligence |
| Citations | 3 |
| Key findings | Reductions in high-beta-band neural oscillations in the posterior medial cortices were associated with radical disruptions of embodied self-experience, including suspension of agency and dissolution of a localized first-person perspective. |
Abstract
Human experience is imbued by the sense of being an embodied agent. The investigation of such basic self-consciousness has been hampered by the difficulty of comprehensively modulating it in the laboratory while reliably capturing ensuing subjective changes. The present preregistered study fills this gap by combining advanced meditative states with principled phenomenological interviews: Forty-six long-term meditators (19 female, 27 male) were instructed to modulate and attenuate their embodied self-experience during magnetoencephalographic monitoring. Results showed frequency specific (high beta band) activity reductions in frontoparietal and posterior medial cortices (PMC). Importantly, PMC reductions were driven by a subgroup describing radical embodied self disruptions, including suspension of agency and dissolution of a localised first-person perspective. Neural changes were correlated with lifetime meditation and interview-derived experiential changes, but not with classical self-reports. The results demonstrate the potential of integrating in-depth first-person methods into neuroscientific experiments. Furthermore, they highlight neural oscillations in the PMC as a central process supporting the embodied sense of self.