Content-Free Awareness: EEG-fcMRI Correlates of Consciousness as Such in an Expert Meditator

Frontiers in Psychology
Ulf WinterStefan Schmidt

Abstract

The minimal neural correlate of the conscious state, regardless of the neural activity correlated with the ever-changing contents of experience, has still not been identified. Different attempts have been made, mainly by comparing the normal waking state to seemingly unconscious states, such as deep sleep or general anesthesia. A more direct approach would be the neuroscientific investigation of conscious states that are experienced as free of any specific phenomenal content. Here we present serendipitous data on content-free awareness (CFA) during an EEG-fMRI assessment reported by an extraordinarily qualified meditator with over 50,000 h of practice. We focused on two specific cortical networks related to external and internal awareness, i.e., the dorsal attention network (DAN) and the default mode network (DMN), to explore the neural correlates of this experience. The combination of high-resolution EEG and ultrafast fMRI enabled us to analyze the dynamic aspects of fMRI connectivity informed by EEG power analysis. The neural correlates of CFA were characterized by a sharp decrease in alpha power and an increase in theta power as well as increases in functional connectivity in the DAN and decreases in the posterior DMN. We in...Continue Reading

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Citations

Mar 10, 2020·Cognitive Neuropsychology·Thomas Metzinger
Aug 28, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Narayanan Srinivasan
Oct 13, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Eric Van Lente, Michael J Hogan
Oct 21, 2020·Magma·Juergen HennigPierre LeVan
Dec 9, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Cortland J DahlRichard J Davidson
Nov 3, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Tal Dotan Ben-SoussanFilippo Carducci
Apr 6, 2021·Cognitive Processing·Johannes Wagemann, Jonas Raggatz

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