Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Neuro-X Institute and Brain-Mind Institute, Geneva, Switzerland; All Here SA, Geneva, Switzerland.
2 papers in the library · 6 citations · publishing 2025-2026
Experienced meditators often report feeling detached from their body and current concerns. This study used virtual reality to manipulate perspective during meditation in 23 participants, comparing a third-person perspective (3PP) with a first-person perspective (1PP). The 3PP condition produced stronger feelings of detachment and disconnection, reduced awareness of body boundaries, and less identification with the body. Neural recordings showed a more negative heartbeat-evoked potential in the 3PP condition, linked to activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. These results connect changes in the sense of self during meditation to brain processes underlying bodily self-awareness, suggesting VR could help cultivate self-transcendent experiences.
Focused-attention meditation on the breath reorganizes large-scale brain dynamics by reducing activity in neural networks linked to self-referential and memory-based processing while increasing activity in networks supporting attentional stability and internal monitoring. In 22 experienced practitioners, high-density EEG microstate analysis identified five canonical brain states. Meditation robustly reduced Microstate C, generated in medial and lateral temporal regions including the hippocampus, and increased Microstates D and E, generated in posterior midline regions and frontoparietal networks respectively. These changes suggest that focused-attention meditation downregulates self-referential processing and enhances neural states for attention and internal awareness.