Self-specific processing in the meditating brain: a MEG neurophenomenology study

Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2016, 1–13 doi: 10.1093/nc/niw019 Research article Self-specific processing in the meditating brain: a MEG neurophenomenology study 1 Gonda Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel; 2Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel; 3Founder, Senior Teacher, Israel Insight Society (Tovana), Israel; 4 Psychology Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel; 5Faculty of Education, The Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel; and 6Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tel-Hai Academic College, Upper Galilee, Israel *Correspondence address. Faculty of Education, The Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel, E-mail: Abstract Self-specific processes (SSPs) specify the self as an embodied subject and agent, implementing a functional self/nonself distinction in perception, cognition, and action. Despite recent interest, it is still undetermined whether SSPs are all-ornothing or graded phenomena; whether they can be identified in neuroimaging data; and whether they can be altered through attentional training. These issues are approached through a neurophenomenological exploration of the sense-ofboundaries (SB), the fundamental experience of being an ‘I’ (self) separated from the ‘world’ (nonself). The SB experience was explored in collaboration with a uniquely qualified meditation practitioner, who volitionally produced, while being scanned by magnetoencephalogram (MEG), three mental states characterized by a graded SB experience. The results were then partly validated in an independent group of 10 long-term meditators. Implicated neural mechanisms include rightlateralized beta oscillations in the temporo-parietal junction, a region known to mediate the experiential unity of self and body; and in the medial parietal cortex, a central node of the self’s representational system. The graded nature as well as the trainable flexibility and neural plasticity of SSPs may hold clinical implications for populations with a disturbed SB. Key words: self-specific processes; minimal self; MEG; neurophenomenology; meditation; beta band; parietal cortex Introduction In the last decade, cognitive neuroscience has widened its exploration of the neural processes giving rise to self-experience from processes that evaluate certain features in relation to one’s perceptual image or mental concept of oneself (selfrelated processes, SRP), to processes that specify the self as an embodied subjective knower and agent (self-specific processes, SSPs) (Christoff et al., 2011; Blanke, 2012; Seth, 2013). SRP processes, also known as “extended” (Damasio, 1999) or “narrative” (Gallagher, 2000) –self processes, have so far received the bulk of the neuroimaging community’s attention and have been shown to be closely linked to the subjective content and neural activity attributed to the default-mode network (DMN, Raichle et al., 2001), in particular involving medial regions (Gusnard et al., 2001; Northoff et al., 2006; Buckner et al., 2008; Andrews-Hanna et al., 2010). These reference the “self-as-object” (James, 1890) and typically involve tasks assessing one’s personality, traits, name, or appearance. As such, they include higher-order cognitive functions such as evaluation, judgment, and reflective thought (Legrand and Ruby, 2009; Christoff et al., 2011; Northoff Received: 8 February 2016; Revised: 25 August 2016. Accepted: 27 August 2016 C The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. V This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1 Yair Dor-Ziderman,1 Yochai Ataria,2,6 Stephen Fulder,3 Abraham Goldstein1,4 and Aviva Berkovich-Ohana5,* 2 | Dor-Ziderman et al. In addition, the grounded theory approach considers data with no hypotheses or categories fixed at the outset, staying as close as possible to the data. Through this process, nine categories of experience that diminished during the shifts between the three SB stages were identified. These are presented and discussed in detail in Ataria et al. (2015). The categories are summarized in Table 1 below. The main conclusions of the phenomenological inquiry were that the SB should be defined in terms of flexibility, rather than location; and that the more flexible the SB, the weaker these phenomenal categories become, some dissolving completely and some maintaining a very weak presence. The phenomenal categories outlined above map onto theoretical and experimental conceptualizations which have been previously explored by phenomenologists and cognitive neuroscientists. Specifically, we are referring to self-awareness, including its extended/narrative and core/minimal aspects (using Damasio, 2010 and Gallagher, 2000 terminology, respectively). The categories of “time,” “location” and “self” map onto the self-as-object extended self-conceptualization (Damasio, 2010), whereas the core/minimal self-concept has been argued to be composed of the categories of “internal-external,” (Christoff et al., 2011) “agency,” and “ownership” (Gallagher, 2000) and “center” (Zahavi, 2006). The status of the “TTS” and “bodily feelings” categories is less clear (Gallagher, 2000, 2013). Though possibly related to the minimal self-concept, they are better understood in terms of Damasio’s (2010) proto-self-concept, conceptualized as primordial feelings of the living body (such as proprioception and kinesthesia), which precede the subjective experience of being a self. The suggested preminimal-self-status of the “TTS” and “bodily feelings” agrees with the phenomenal results that these two categories remain, to some degree, even when the SB (as defined by seven of its categories) disappears. The close link between the nine phenomenal categories and the narrative/minimal/selfless modes of awareness are further clarified in the Supplementary Material (Section 1.1, Supplementary Fig. S1). As a final point, it is important to keep in mind that the different modes of selfawareness are not mutually exclusive. While not self-specific, SRP (such as the narrative mode) do include also SSPs. Like other conscious mental content produced by the brain, SRP content expressed as thoughts and feelings is stamped with the subjective signature of being our thoughts and feelings. Thus, an encapsulated working model of self-awareness modes has been suggested (Gallagher, 2000; Damasio, 2010; Dor-Ziderman et al., 2013) and is adopted here. These phenomenological insights were “front-loaded” (Gallagher and Sørensen, 2006) onto the experiment’s design and analysis in two ways. First, the gradually descending states of SB guided us toward perfo (...truncated)