University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
Danish Technical University, Building 321, DTU, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2020 Apr;20(2):326-339. doi: 10.3758/s13415-020-00771-y.
Contemplative practices are thought to modify one's experience of self and fundamentally change self-referential processing. However, few studies have examined the brain correlates of self-referential processing in long-term meditators. Here, we used the self-referential encoding task (SRET) to examine event-related potentials (ERP) during assessment of pleasant and unpleasant self-views in long-term meditators versus age-matched meditation-naïve control participants. Compared with controls, meditators endorsed significantly more pleasant and fewer unpleasant words as self-referential. We also found a between-group difference in the early component of the late-positive-potential (LPP) of the ERP characterized by a larger response to unpleasant versus pleasant words in controls and no difference in meditators. A cross-sectional design, such as the one used in the present study, has certain caveats like self-selectivity bias. If such caveats did not affect our results, these findings suggest that a long-term contemplative lifestyle, of which meditation training is an integral part, alters self-referential processing towards a more adaptive view of self and neural equivalence towards pleasant and unpleasant self-views. These findings suggest that long-term meditation training may affect brain and behavioural mechanism that support a more flexible and healthy relationship to one's self.
沉思实践被认为可以改变个体对自我的体验，并从根本上改变自我参照加工。然而，很少有研究探讨长期冥想者的自我参照加工的大脑相关性。在这里，我们使用自我参照编码任务（SRET）来检测长期冥想者和年龄匹配的无冥想经验对照组在评估愉快和不愉快自我观点时的事件相关电位（ERP）。与对照组相比，冥想者更倾向于将更多的愉快词和更少的不愉快词视为自我参照。我们还发现，ERP 的晚期正波（LPP）的早期成分存在组间差异，其特征是对照组对不愉快词的反应明显大于对愉快词的反应，而冥想者则没有差异。像本研究中使用的横断面设计存在一定的局限性，如自我选择性偏差。如果这些局限性没有影响我们的结果，那么这些发现表明，长期的沉思生活方式，其中冥想训练是一个组成部分，改变了自我参照加工，使其对自我有更适应的看法，对愉快和不愉快的自我看法有相同的神经反应。这些发现表明，长期的冥想训练可能会影响大脑和行为机制，从而支持更灵活和健康的自我关系。
