Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference
doi:10.1093/scan/nsm030
SCAN (2007) 2, 313–322
Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation
reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference
Norman A. S. Farb,1 Zindel V. Segal,1,2 Helen Mayberg,3 Jim Bean,4 Deborah McKeon,4
Zainab Fatima,5 and Adam K. Anderson1,5
1
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada, 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto and Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON M5T 1R8, Canada, 3Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University
School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA 30322, 4Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic, St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, M6R 1B5, and 5Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto, Ontario, M6A 2E1
Keywords: self-reference; attention; meditation; fMRI; insula; prefrontal cortex; somatosensory; plasticity
Since William James’ early conceptualization, the ‘self ’ has
been characterised as a source of permanence beneath the
constantly shifting set of experiences that constitute
conscious life. This permanence is often related to the
construction of narratives that weave together the threads
of temporally disparate experiences into a cohesive fabric.
To account for this continuity, William James posited an
explanatory ‘me’ to make sense of the ‘I’ acting in the present
moment (James, 1890). Recently, progress has been made in
characterizing the neural bases of the processes supporting
William James’ ‘me’ in the form of ‘narrative’ self-reference
(Gallagher, 2004), highlighting the role of the medial
prefrontal cortices (mPFC) in supporting self awareness by
linking subjective experiences across time (Neisser, 1997;
Northoff and Bermpohl, 2004). The mPFC has been shown
to support an array of self-related capacities, including
memory for self-traits (Craik et al., 1999; Kelley et al., 2002;
Fossati et al., 2003; Macrae et al., 2004), traits of similar
others (Mitchell et al., 2006), reflected self-knowledge
(Lieberman et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2005), and
aspirations for the future (Johnson et al., 2006). As such,
Received 26 April 2007; Accepted 23 June 2007
Advance Access publication 13 August 2007
This research was funded by grants from the National Science and Engineering Research Council and the
Canadian Institute of Health Research.
Correspondence should be addressed to Adam K. Anderson, Department of Psychology, University of
Toronto, 100 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. E-mail: .
cortical midline processes may be characterised as supporting narrative self-reference that maintains continuity of
identity across time (Gallagher, 2004).
Narrative self-reference stands in stark contrast to the
immediate, agentic ‘I’ supporting the notion of momentary
experience as an expression of selfhood. Most examinations
of self-reference ignore mechanisms of momentary consciousness, which may represent core aspects of selfexperience achieved earlier in development (Damasio,
1999; Zelazo and Frye, 1998; Gallagher, 2004) and may
have evolved in earlier animal species (Panksepp, 2005).
Indeed, little is known about whether the neural substrates
underlying momentary self-reference are one and the same,
or distinct from, cortical midline structures supporting
narrative experience. One hypothesis suggests that awareness
of momentary self-reference is neurally distinct from
narrative self-reference and is derived from neural markers
of transient body states, in particular, right lateralised
exteroceptive somatic and interoceptive insular cortices
(Damasio, 1999; Craig, 2004; Critchley et al., 2004). In the
present study, we examined this thesis.
We investigated these hypothesised dual modes of selfreference by employing functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) during attention to two temporally distinct
foci of attention: the self as experienced across time and in
the immediate moment. One obstacle to investigating
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It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking
experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness,
we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits (’narrative’ focus, NF) or
momentary experience (’experiential’ focus, EF) in both novice participants and those having attended an 8 week course in
mindfulness meditation, a program that trains individuals to develop focused attention on the present. In novices, EF yielded focal
reductions in self-referential cortical midline regions (medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC) associated with NF. In trained participants,
EF resulted in more marked and pervasive reductions in the mPFC, and increased engagement of a right lateralised network,
comprising the lateral PFC and viscerosomatic areas such as the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and inferior parietal
lobule. Functional connectivity analyses further demonstrated a strong coupling between the right insula and the mPFC in
novices that was uncoupled in the mindfulness group. These results suggest a fundamental neural dissociation between two
distinct forms of self-awareness that are habitually integrated but can be dissociated through attentional training: the self across
time and in the present moment.
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SCAN (2007)
person or (ii) an EF mode, monitoring their moment-tomoment experience in response to the adjectives. Traitrelated adjectives were chosen for their ability to promote
self-reflection as evidenced by previous research (e.g. Fossati
et al., 2003).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Participants
Participants were recruited upon enrolment in the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program at
St Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto, an 8 week intensive
course (Kabat-Zinn et al., 1992) that involves daily exercises
in focusing attention on the present moment, as described in
Kabat-Zinn et al. (1992). The MBSR program featured
weekly in-class sessions in which participants were trained in
several exercises, consisting chiefly of practicing the
continuous focus of attention on one’s breathing and other
sensations, as well as attentional body scans and some basic
hatha yoga postures. On each of the six days between
classroom sessions, participants were asked to practice the
attentional exercises on their own for at least 45 min (KabatZinn, 1982). Participants were randomly assigned to either a
pre-training waitlist group (twelve women and four men,
mean age 42.00 9.24) or a post MT group (fifteen women
and five men, mean age 45.55 13.38). A cross-sectional
design was chosen to limit the effects of repeated exposure to
the task and scanner environment. No group differences
were found for age, gender, prior meditation experience,
pre-training anxiety ((BAI) Beck Anxiety Inventory; Beck
and Steer, 1990; novices 13.38 8.49, MT 16.35 (...truncated)
