Meditation in the third-person perspective modulates minimal self and heartbeat-evoked potentials

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Virtual Reality

Background:

• Experienced meditation practitioners report altered self-awareness, including detachment from the body and current concerns.
• Virtual reality (VR) can induce altered self-states like disembodiment, linked to neural activity (heartbeat-evoked potentials - HEPs).
• Previous research explored neural correlates of self-decentering in meditation but lacked experimental VR modulation and behavioral analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally modulate the sense of self during meditation using VR.
• To investigate the subjective, behavioral, and neural changes associated with different VR perspectives during meditation.
• To link the neuroscience of the bodily self to meditation-induced changes in self-awareness.

Main Methods:

• 23 participants meditated in VR using a guided program from either a third-person (3PP) or first-person perspective (1PP).
• Collected behavioral measures assessing self-perception and body boundary salience.
• Recorded heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs) to analyze neural correlates.

Main Results:

• The third-person perspective (3PP) meditation condition induced stronger detachment, reduced body boundary salience, and decreased self-identification with the body compared to the first-person perspective (1PP).
• A more negative HEP amplitude was observed in the 3PP condition.
• Neural activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex was associated with the 3PP condition.

Conclusions:

• VR-based meditation modulation offers a novel platform to study the sense of self and its neural underpinnings.
• Short-term subjective, behavioral, and neural changes demonstrate a link between VR-induced self-manipulation and the neuroscience of the bodily self.
• This research lays groundwork for exploring VR's potential in cultivating self-transcendent experiences and long-term changes in meditators.