Reconstructing and deconstructing the self: Cognitive mechanisms in meditation practice

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volumn 19, Issue 9, 2015, Pages 515-523

  Dahl, Cortland J ^a,b   Lutz, Antoine ^a,b,c,d   Davidson, Richard J ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON   (United States)

^c LYON NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER   (France)

^d UNIVERSITÉ LYON 1   (France)

Author keywords

Experiential fusion; Insight; Meditation; Meta awareness; Mindfulness; Self inquiry

Indexed keywords

BIOLOGY; COGNITIVE SYSTEMS;

INSIGHT; MEDITATION; META-AWARENESS; MINDFULNESS; SELF-INQUIRY;

CLASSIFICATION (OF INFORMATION);

ATTENTION; AWARENESS; BUDDHISM; COGNITION; HUMAN; INTROSPECTION; MEDITATION; MINDFULNESS; REVIEW; SELF CONCEPT; SELF EVALUATION; PHYSIOLOGY;

ATTENTION; AWARENESS; COGNITION; HUMANS; MEDITATION; SELF CONCEPT;

EID: 84952637984     PISSN: 13646613     EISSN: 1879307X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.07.001     Document Type: Review

References (127)

1. Diener E., et al. Subjective well-being: three decades of progress. Psychol. Bull. 1999, 125:276-302.
2. Ryff C.D. Psychological well-being revisited: advances in the science and practice of eudaimonia. Psychother. Psychosom. 2014, 83:10-28.
3. Leiberg S., et al. Short-term compassion training increases prosocial behavior in a newly developed prosocial game. PLoS ONE 2011, 6:e17798.
4. Hoge E.a., et al. Loving-kindness meditation practice associated with longer telomeres in women. Brain. Behav. Immun. 2013, 32:159-163.
5. Goyal M., et al. Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Intern. Med. 2014, 174:357-368.
6. Teasdale J.D., et al. Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 2000, 68:615-623.
7. MacLean K., et al. Intensive meditation training improves perceptual discrimination and sustained attention. Psychol. Sci. 2010, 21:829-839.
8. Davidson R.J., et al. Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosom. Med. 2003, 65:564-570.
9. Tang Y-Y., et al. The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Neuroscience 2015, 16:213-225.
10. Sedlmeier P., et al. The psychological effects of meditation: a meta-analysis. Psychol. Bull. 2012, 138:1139-1171.
11. Lutz A., et al. Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2008, 12:163-169.
12. Austin J.H. Zen and the brain: mutually illuminating topics. Front. Psychol. 2013, 4:784.
13. Travis F. Transcendental experiences during meditation practice. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 2014, 1307:1-8.
14. Josipovic Z. Neural correlates of nondual awareness in meditation. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 2013, 1307:9-18.
15. Kozhevnikov M., et al. The enhancement of visuospatial processing efficiency through buddhist deity meditation. Psychol. Sci. 2009, 20:645-653.
16. Nash J.D., Newberg A. Toward a unifying taxonomy and definition for meditation. Front. Psychol. 2013, 4:1-18.
17. Travis F., Shear J. Focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending: categories to organize meditations from Vedic, Buddhist and Chinese traditions. Conscious. Cogn. 2010, 19:1110-1118.
18. Holzel B.K., et al. How does mindfulness meditation work? Proposing mechanisms of action from a conceptual and neural perspective. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 2011, 6:537-559.
19. Vago D.R., Silbersweig D.a. Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2012, 6:296.
20. Lutz A., et al. Investigating the phenomenological matrix of mindfulness-related practices from a neurocognitive perspective. Am. Psychol. 2015, 10.1037/a0039585.
21. Jha A., et al. Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention. Cogn. Affect. Behav. Neurosci. 2007, 7:109-119.
22. Hasenkamp W., et al. Mind wandering and attention during focused meditation: a fine-grained temporal analysis of fluctuating cognitive states. Neuroimage 2012, 59:750-760.
23. Tang Y-Y., et al. Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2007, 104:17152-17156.
24. Smallwood J., et al. The lights are on but no one's home: meta-awareness and the decoupling of attention when the mind wanders. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 2007, 14:527-533.
25. Wells A. Emotional Disorders and Metacognition: Innovative Cognitive Therapy 2000, John Wiley & Sons.
26. Hayes S.C. Acceptance and commitment therapy, relational frame theory, and the third wave of behavioral and cognitive therapies. Behav. Ther. 2004, 35:639-665.
27. Hadot P. Philosophy as a Way Of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault 1995, Blackwell.
28. Gethin R. On some definitions of mindfulness. Contemp. Buddhism 2011, 12:263-279.
29. McCracken L.M., et al. Decentering, rumination, cognitive defusion, and psychological flexibility in people with chronic pain. J. Behav. Med. 2014, 37:1215-1225.
30. Castellanos F.X., et al. Characterizing cognition in ADHD: beyond executive dysfunction. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2006, 10:117-124.
31. Waters A.J., et al. Attentional bias to drug cues is elevated before and during temptations to use heroin and cocaine. Psychopharmacology (Berl.) 2012, 219:909-921.
32. Van Bockstaele B., et al. A review of current evidence for the causal impact of attentional bias on fear and anxiety. Psychol. Bull. 2014, 140:682-721.
33. Cohen R., et al. Impairments of attention and effort among patients with major affective disorders. J. Neuropsychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 2001, 13:385-395.
34. Castellanos F.X., Proal E. Large-scale brain systems in ADHD: beyond the prefrontal-striatal model. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2012, 16:17-26.
35. Linehan M., et al. Dialectical behavior therapy for patients with borderline personality disorder and drug-dependence. Am. J. Additict. 1999, 8:279-292.
36. Segal Z.V., et al. Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression 2012, Guilford Press.
37. Kabat-Zinn J. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness 2013, Bantam.
38. Butler A.C., et al. The empirical status of cognitive-behavioral therapy: a review of meta-analyses. Clin. Psychol. Rev. 2006, 26:17-31.
39. Lo C.S.L., et al. Decentering mediates the effect of ruminative and experiential self-focus on negative thinking in depression. Cognit. Ther. Res. 2014, 38:389-396.
40. Hoge E.a., et al. Change in decentering mediates improvement in anxiety in mindfulness-based stress reduction for generalized anxiety disorder. Cognit. Ther. Res. 2014, 39:228-235.
41. Bieling P.J., et al. Treatment-specific changes in decentering following mindfulness-based cognitive therapy versus antidepressant medication or placebo for prevention of depressive relapse. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 2012, 80:365-372.
42. Brewer J.A., et al. Craving to quit: psychological models and neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness training as treatment for addictions. Psychol. Addict. Behav. 2012, 27:366-379.
43. Elwafi H.M., et al. Mindfulness training for smoking cessation: moderation of the relationship between craving and cigarette use. Drug Alcohol. Depend. 2013, 130:222-229.
44. Fox K.C.R., et al. Is meditation associated with altered brain structure?. A systematic review and meta-analysis of morphometric neuroimaging in meditation practitioners. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 2014, 43:48-73.
45. Lutz A., et al. Mental training enhances attentional stability: neural and behavioral evidence. J. Neurosci. 2009, 29:13418-13427.
46. Slagter H., et al. Mental training affects distribution of limited brain resources. PLoS Biol. 2007, 5:1228-1235.
47. Van Vugt M.K., Slagter H. Control over experience? Magnitude of the attentional blink depends on meditative state. Conscious. Cogn. 2014, 23:32-39.
48. Brefczynski-Lewis J., et al. Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2007, 104:11483-11488.
49. Goldin P., Gross J. Effect of mindfulness meditation training on the neural bases of emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder. Emotion 2010, 10:83-84.
50. Killingsworth M.A., Gilbert D.T. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science 2010, 330:932.
51. Mrazek M.D., et al. Mindfulness and mind-wandering: finding convergence through opposing constructs. Emotion 2012, 12:442-448.
52. Levinson D.B., et al. A mind you can count on: validating breath counting as a behavioral measure of mindfulness. Front. Psychol. 2014, 5:1-10.
53. Mason M.F., et al. Wandering minds: the default network and stimulus-independent thought. Science 2007, 315:393-395.
54. Fox K.C.R., et al. The wandering brain: meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of mind-wandering and related spontaneous thought processes. Neuroimage 2015, 111:611-621.
55. Christoff K., et al. Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2009, 106:8719-8724.
56. Farb N.A., et al. Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2007, 2:313-322.
57. Brewer J., et al. Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2011, 108:20254-20259.
58. Beck A.T. The current state of cognitive therapy. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 2005, 62:953-959.
59. Disner S.G., et al. Neural mechanisms of the cognitive model of depression. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2011, 12:467-477.
60. Gross J.J. Emotion regulation in adulthood: timing is everything. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 2001, 10:214-219.
61. Webb T.L., et al. Dealing with feeling: a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychol. Bull. 2012, 138:775-808.
62. Buhle J.T., et al. Cognitive reappraisal of emotion: a meta-analysis of human neuroimaging studies. Cereb. Cortex 2013, 24:2981-2990.
63. Goldin P.R., et al. Neural mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal of negative self-beliefs in social anxiety disorder. Biol. Psychiatry 2009, 66:1091-1099.
64. Lamm C., et al. The neural substrate of human empathy: effects of perspective-taking and cognitive appraisal. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 2007, 19:42-58.
65. Ruby P., Decety J. How would you feel versus how do you think she would feel?. A neuroimaging study of perspective-taking with social emotions. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 2004, 16:988-999.
66. Decety J., et al. An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2013, 7:489.
67. Pettigrew T.F., Tropp L.R. How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta-analytic tests of three mediatorsy. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 2008, 38:922-934.
68. Lally P., Gardner B. Promoting habit formation. Health Psychol. Rev. 2013, 7:S137-S158.
69. Mascaro J.S., et al. Compassion meditation enhances empathic accuracy and related neural activity. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2013, 8:48-55.
70. Klimecki O.M., et al. Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2014, 9:873-879.
71. Maharshi R. Be as You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi 1985, Arkana.
72. Karr A. Contemplating Reality: A Practitioner's Guide to the View in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism 2007, Shambhala Publications.
73. Buddhaghosa The Path of Purification 2011, Buddhist Publication Society.
74. Kounios J., Beeman M. The cognitive neuroscience of insight. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2014, 65:71-93.
75. Bowden E.M., Jung-Beeman M. Aha! Insight experience correlates with solution activation in the right hemisphere. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 2003, 10:730-737.
76. Chi R.P., Snyder A.W. Facilitate insight by non-invasive brain stimulation. PLoS ONE 2011, 6:e16655.
77. Chi R.P., Snyder A.W. Brain stimulation enables the solution of an inherently difficult problem. Neurosci. Lett. 2012, 515:121-124.
78. Harvey P. The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism 2004, Routledge.
79. Gethin R. The Foundations of Buddhism 1998, Oxford University Press.
80. Ding X., et al. Short-term meditation modulates brain activity of insight evoked with solution cue. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2014, 10:43-49.
81. Gazzaniga M.S. Forty-five years of split-brain research and still going strong. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2005, 6:653-659.
82. Denny B.T., et al. A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of self- and other judgments reveals a spatial gradient for mentalizing in medial prefrontal cortex. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 2012, 24:1742-1752.
83. Lemogne C., et al. Negative affectivity, self-referential processing and the cortical midline structures. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2011, 6:426-433.
84. Brewer J.a., et al. What about the 'self' is processed in the posterior cingulate cortex?. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2013, 7:647.
85. Gallagher S. Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2000, 4:14-21.
86. Blanke O., Metzinger T. Full-body illusions and minimal phenomenal selfhood. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2009, 13:7-13.
87. Seth A.K. Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2013, 17:565-573.
88. Critchley H., Seth A. Will studies of macaque insula reveal the neural mechanisms of self-awareness?. Neuron 2012, 74:423-426.
89. Craig A.D.B. How do you feel - now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2009, 10:59-70.
90. Ionta S., et al. Multisensory mechanisms in temporo-parietal cortex support self-location and first-person perspective. Neuron 2011, 70:363-374.
91. Damasio A. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain 2012, Random House.
92. Lutz A., et al. Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2004, 101:16369-16373.
93. Josipovic Z., et al. Influence of meditation on anti-correlated networks in the brain. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2011, 5:183.
94. Legrand D., Ruby P. What is self-specific? Theoretical investigation and critical review of neuroimaging results. Psychol. Rev. 2009, 116:252-282.
95. Gillihan S.J., Farah M.J. Is self special?. A critical review of evidence from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Psychol. Bull. 2005, 131:76-97.
96. Bishop S.R. Mindfulness: a proposed operational definition. Clin. Psychol. Sci. Pract. 2004, 11:230-241.
97. Shapiro S.L., et al. Mechanisms of mindfulness. J. Clin. Psychol. 2006, 62:373-386.
98. Kabat-Zinn J., et al. The clinical use of mindfulness meditation for the self-regulation of chronic pain. J. Behav. Med. 1985, 8:163-190.
99. Dreyfus G. Is mindfulness present-centred and non-judgmental?. A discussion of the cognitive dimensions of mindfulness. Contemp. Buddhism 2011, 12:41-54.
100. Dunne J. Toward an understanding of non-dual mindfulness. Contemp. Buddhism 2011, 12:71-88.
101. Sharf R.H. Is mindfulness Buddhist? (and why it matters). Transcult. Psychiatry 2014, 10.1177/1363461514557561.
102. Olendzki A. The construction of mindfulness. Contemp. Buddhism 2011, 12:55-70.
103. Meditation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam 2015, Bloomsbury Academic. H. Eifring (Ed.).
104. Salzberg S. Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness 2002, Shambhala.
105. Kang Y., et al. The nondiscriminating heart: lovingkindness meditation training decreases implicit intergroup bias. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 2014, 143:1306-1313.
106. Rinpoche Y.M. Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism 2014, Snow Lion Publications.
107. Lingpa J. Deity, Mantra, and Wisdom: Development Stage Meditation in Tibetan Buddhist Tantra 2007, Snow Lion Publications.
108. Ricard M. Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World 2015, Little, Brown and Company.
109. Singer T., Klimecki O.M. Empathy and compassion. Curr. Biol. 2014, 24:R875-R878.
110. Batson C.D., et al. Distress and empathy: two qualitatively distinct vicarious emotions with different motivational consequences. J. Pers. 1987, 55:19-39.
111. Jackson P.L., et al. How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. Neuroimage 2005, 24:771-779.
112. Preston S.D., De Waal F.B.M. Empathy: its ultimate and proximate bases. Behav. Brain Sci. 2002, 25:1-72.
113. Keltner D., Goetz J.L. Compassion. Encyclopedia of Social Psychology 2006, 159-161. Sage Publications. R.F. Baumeister, K.D. Vohs (Eds.).
114. Klimecki O.M., et al. Functional neural plasticity and associated changes in positive affect after compassion training. Cereb. cortex 2013, 23:1552-1561.
115. Fredrickson B.L., et al. Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 2008, 95:1045-1062.
116. De Vignemont F., Singer T. The empathic brain: how, when and why?. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2006, 10:435-441.
117. Fan Y., et al. Is there a core neural network in empathy? An fMRI based quantitative meta-analysis. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 2011, 35:903-911.
118. Weng H.Y., et al. Compassion training alters altruism and neural responses to suffering. Psychol. Sci. 2013, 24:1171-1180.
119. Lutz A., et al. Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: effects of meditative expertise. PLoS ONE 2008, 3:e1897.
120. Buchanan T.W., et al. The empathic, physiological resonance of stress. Soc. Neurosci. 2012, 7:191-201.
121. Cosley B.J., et al. Is compassion for others stress buffering? Consequences of compassion and social support for physiological reactivity to stress. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 2010, 46:816-823.
122. Pace T.W.W., et al. Effect of compassion meditation on neuroendocrine, innate immune and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2009, 34:87-98.
123. Pace T.W.W., et al. Engagement with cognitively-based compassion training is associated with reduced salivary C-reactive protein from before to after training in foster care program adolescents. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2013, 38:294-299.
124. A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy 2013, Wiley-Blackwell. S.M. Emmanuel (Ed.).
125. Buddhaghosa B. The Path of Purification: Visuddhimagga 1991, Buddhist Publication Society.
126. Roberts P.A. Mahamudra and Related Instructions: Core Teachings of the Kagyu Schools 2011, Wisdom Publications.
127. Davidson, R.J. and Kaszniak, A. (in press) Conceptual and methodological issues in research on mindfulness and meditation. Am. Psychol.