Neural substrates of self-referential processing in Chinese Buddhists

Monitoring the neural activity associated with praying in Sahaja Yoga meditation

BACKGROUND

Sahaja Yoga Meditation draws on many religious traditions and uses a variety of techniques including Christian prayer to reach a state known as thoughtless awareness, or mental silence. While there are many studies on the neural correlates of meditation, few studies have focused on the neural correlates of praying. Thus, the aim of our research was to study the neural activity associated with the prayer practices in Sahaja Yoga Mediation, which have not been studied before, to explore effects beyond repetitive speech or "mantra effects". Sixteen experienced Sahaja Yoga Meditation practitioners were scanned using task based functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging while performing formalised and improvised forms of praying and their equivalent secular tasks.

RESULTS

Our results showed the deactivation of bilateral thalamus during both prayers compared to secular conditions and the activation in the medial prefrontal cortex that was reduced by religious and formalised secular speech conditions but increased during improvised secular speech; similarly, frontal regions were deactivated when comparing prayers to their secular equivalents.

DISCUSSION

These results seem to depict two important factors related with praying in Sahaja Yoga Meditation merging inner concentration and social cognition. First, the perception of the surroundings mediated by the thalamus may be decreased during these prayers probably due to the establishment of inner concentration and, second, frontal deactivation effects could be related to reduced social judgement and 'mentalizing', particularly in the medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings suggest that praying by Sahaja Yoga Meditation practitioners is neurophenomenologically different from the social cognitive attempt of praying within Christian praying practices.

Parental religiosity is associated with changes in youth functional network organization and cognitive performance in early adolescence

Parental religious beliefs and practices (religiosity) may have profound effects on youth, especially in neurodevelopmentally complex periods such as adolescence. In n = 5566 children (median age = 120.0 months; 52.1% females; 71.2% with religious affiliation) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, relationships between parental religiosity and non-religious beliefs on family values (data on youth beliefs were not available), topological properties of youth resting-state brain networks, and executive function, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility were investigated. Lower caregiver education and family income were associated with stronger parental beliefs (p < 0.01). Strength of both belief types was correlated with lower efficiency, community structure, and robustness of frontoparietal control, temporoparietal, and dorsal attention networks (p < 0.05), and lower Matrix Reasoning scores. Stronger religious beliefs were negatively associated (directly and indirectly) with multiscale properties of salience and default-mode networks, and lower Flanker and Dimensional Card Sort scores, but positively associated with properties of the precuneus. Overall, these effects were small (Cohen's d ~ 0.2 to ~ 0.4). Overlapping neuromodulatory and cognitive effects of parental beliefs suggest that early adolescents may perceive religious beliefs partly as context-independent rules on expected behavior. However, religious beliefs may also differentially affect cognitive flexibility, attention, and inhibitory control and their neural substrates.

Religious Afterlife Beliefs Decrease Behavioral Avoidance of Symbols of Mortality

An astonishing cultural phenomenon is where, far away from or close to a city center, people in different societies localize cemeteries that function as both sites of memory of lost ones and symbols of mortality. Yet a psychological account of such differences in behavioral responses to symbols of mortality is lacking. Across five studies (N = 1,590), we tested a psychological model that religious afterlife beliefs decrease behavioral avoidance of symbols of mortality (BASM) by developing and validating a word-position task for quantifying BASM. We showed evidence that religious believers, including Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, exhibited decreased BASM relative to nonbelievers. We also provide evidence for a causal relationship between religious afterlife beliefs and reduced BASM. Our findings provide new insight into the functional role of religious afterlife beliefs in modulating human avoidance behavior in response to symbols of mortality.

Actor or recipient role matters: Neural correlates of self-serving bias

INTRODUCTION

When involved in interpersonal events, people often play the role of an initiative actor (e.g., "I hit Tom") or a passive recipient (e.g., "Paul hit me"). Numerous studies have documented that people manifest a self-serving bias (SSB), that is, they tend to attribute positive interpersonal events to themselves and negative events to other external factors. Recent studies have identified the neural regions associated with the SSB; yet little is known about the neural mechanism of its modulation by the actor or recipient role.

METHODS

In this study, participants were scanned while they attributed the positive or negative events in which the self played the actor or recipient role.

RESULTS

The results showed that people manifested more SSB than non-SSB (NONSSB) attributions and spent less time on making the former. Importantly, more SSB attributions and shorter reaction times were found in the actor than in the recipient condition. Greater activity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) was observed in responding to NONSSB than SSB attributions only in the actor condition. Furthermore, the greater the difference in dmPFC activity in responding to NONSSB and SSB attributions, the smaller the difference in corresponding attribution response.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that people prefer making heuristic SSB attributions, and more cognitive resources are needed when they make NONSSB attributions. The activity of the dmPFC may be associated with inhibiting the heuristic SSB, especially when they play the actor role at interpersonal events.

Self-esteem and cultural worldview buffer mortality salience effects on responses to self-face: Distinct neural mediators

Terror management theory proposes cultural worldview and self-esteem as two buffers against death anxiety. The neural mediators of these buffering effects, however, have not been fully understood. The present work investigated neural mediation mechanisms between self-esteem/cultural trait (self-construal) and mortality salience (MS) effects on self-face processing. We found that MS (vs. NA) priming eliminated self-face advantage in behavioral judgments of face-orientation in low self-esteem individuals and reduced self-face advantage in behavioral judgments of facial-familiarity in individuals with high interdependent self-construals. Our functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results showed that, following MS priming, insular activities mediated the relationship between self-esteem and self-face advantage in face-orientation judgments, whereas dorsal medial prefrontal activity mediated the relationship between interdependent self-construal and self-face advantage in face-familiarity judgments. Our findings suggest that distinct neural mechanisms are engaged in mediating the relationships between self-esteem/cultural trait and MS effects on the emotional and cognitive processes of self-relevant information.

Finding the vanished self: Perspective modulates neural substrates of self-reflection in Buddhists

Asians' self-views are flexible and influenced by short-term situational and long-term cultural factors. Due to the long-term religious cultural influence of Chinese Buddhism, Buddhists showed no self-advantage in behavioral and neural level in many previous studies. However, it is unclear whether Chinese Buddhists really have no self-awareness or self-concept. The beliefs of illusionary self and thinking of others first might suggest that the self of Buddhists comes from others' perspective. The present study examined the self of Buddhists in first- and third-person perspective through the self-referential processing paradigm, comparing the behavioral and neural difference when they make self-, friend- and famous-judgment. The behavioral data showed that there were no different recognition ratios between self-, friend-, and famous-processing for participants in first- and third-person perspective. However, the neural results showed that people in third-person perspective group showed significant difference between self- and famous-processing in ventral medial prefrontal cortex, whereas people in first-person perspective group did not show any significant difference in activation between self-, friend-, and famous-processing in these regions. These findings suggested that Buddhists have self-referential processing only in third-person perspective, not in first-person perspective. This study provides neuroimaging evidence for the influence of perspective on Buddhists' self-reflection, and provide empirical evidence supporting and extending culture as situated cognition model of Asia by considering perspective factor.

Religious Belief at the Level of the Brain: Neural Correlates and Influence of Culture

This article summarizes key functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that correlate the neural substrate of religious belief and the influence of culture. I searched and updated PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) publications until March 2018 on religious belief and related topics. Belief, whether religious or nonreligious, is associated with greater signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), a brain region important for self-representation, emotional associations, reward, and goal-driven behavior. However, religious belief, compared with nonreligious belief, registers greater signal in the precuneus, anterior insula, ventral striatum, anterior cingulate cortex, and posterior medial cortex-areas associated with governance of emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict. In contrast, nonreligious belief registers more signal in the left hemisphere memory networks (Harris et al. PLoS One 2009;4:e0007272). Moreover, cultural studies revealed self-judgment tasks in nonbelievers involved more the vMPFC, whereas Christians had significantly increased activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (Han et al. Soc Neurosci 2008;3:1-15). Consequently, the Christian belief of "surrendering to Christ" seemed to weaken neural coding of stimulus self-relatedness but enhanced neural activity underlying evaluative processes of self-referential stimuli. The findings suggest a transformation of the semantic autobiographical self to Christ's conceptual self.

Current Understanding of Religion, Spirituality, and Their Neurobiological Correlates

Religion and spirituality (R/S) have been prominent aspects of most human cultures through the ages; however, scientific inquiry into this phenomenon has been limited. We conducted a systematic literature review of research on the neurobiological correlates of R/S, which resulted in 25 reports studying primarily R/S with electroencephalography, structural neuroimaging (MRI), and functional neuroimaging (fMRI, PET). These studies investigated a wide range of religions (e.g., Christianity, Buddhism, Islam) and R/S states and behaviors (e.g., resting state, prayer, judgments) and employed a wide range of methodologies, some of which (e.g., no control group, varying measures of religiosity, small sample sizes) raise concerns about the validity of the results. Despite these limitations, the findings of these studies collectively suggest that the experience of R/S has specific neurobiological correlates and that these correlates are distinct from non-R/S counterparts. The findings implicate several brain regions potentially associated with R/S development and behavior, including the medial frontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, default mode network, and caudate. This research may suggest future clinical applications and interventions related to R/S and various disorders, including mood, anxiety, psychotic, pain, and vertiginous disorders. Further studies with more rigorous study designs are warranted to elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms of R/S and their potential clinical applications.

Temporal Features of the Differentiation between Self-Name and Religious Leader Name among Christians: An ERP Study

Existing neuroimaging studies have shown that religion, as a subjective culture, can influence self-referential processing. However, the time course of this impact remains unclear. The present study examined how Christians process their own names, the name of their religious leader (i.e., Jesus), and a famous person’s name (i.e., Yao Ming). Behavioral and EEG data were recorded while the participants performed a name-color judgment task for these three names. The behavioral data showed no significant differences in reaction time or accuracy among the names. However, the ERP data showed that the P200 and P300 amplitudes elicited by the self-name and religious leader name were larger than those elicited by the famous name. Furthermore, the self-name also elicited a larger P300 amplitude than the religious leader name did. These results suggested that both the self-name and the religious leader name were processed preferentially due to their important social value for the self as compared to a generally famous name. Importantly, the dissociation between the self-name and the religious leader name was observed at a high-order cognitive stage, which might be attributed to their different roles in one’s self-concept.

The Mindful Self: A Mindfulness-Enlightened Self-view

This paper analyzes studies of mindfulness and the self, with the aim of deepening our understanding of the potential benefits of mindfulness and meditation for mental health and well-being. Our review of empirical research reveals that positive changes in attitudes toward the self and others as a result of mindfulness-enabled practices can play an important role in modulating many mental and physical health problems. Accordingly, we introduce a new concept-the "mindful self"-and compare it with related psychological constructs to describe the positive changes in self-attitude associated with mindfulness meditation practices or interventions. The mindful self is conceptualized as a mindfulness-enlightened self-view and attitude developed by internalizing and integrating the essence of Buddhist psychology into one's self-system. We further posit that the mindful self will be an important intermediary between mindfulness intervention and mental health problems, and an important moderator in promoting well-being. More generally, we suggest that the mindful self may also be an applicable concept with which to describe and predict the higher level of self-development of those who grow up in the culture of Buddhism or regularly engage in meditation over a long period of time.

A critical analysis of cultural metaphors and static cultural frameworks with insight from cultural neuroscience and evolutionary biology

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a critical analysis to address cultural metaphors – a much overlooked aspect of cross-cultural studies. Mainstream cultural metaphors (e.g. the iceberg, the software of the mind, the onion, and the distance) are not only limited in number, but are also overwhelmingly based on the static paradigm – as opposed to the dynamic paradigm that is often sidelined in academic discourse.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper introduces the Diagram of Diversity Pathways – an interdisciplinary framework that sheds some light on how the inherent meaning and heuristic orientation of static cultural metaphors may stand at odds with evidence from the newly emerged field of neurobiology.

Findings

The implications of these metaphors are called into question, namely, culture is all about differences; values are stable; values guide behaviors; and values are seen as binaries.

Research limitations/implications

The paper suggests that theorists and practitioners should pay more attention to the contribution and scholarly work of the dynamic paradigm since there appears to be substantial compatibility between them.

Originality/value

The matching of neurobiology and dynamic paradigm brings into focus alternative metaphors which not only offer insightful perspectives but also may open doors to perceive culture in a new way. Furthermore, cultural metaphors deserve more academic scrutiny because metaphors and theory development can have a symbiotic existence.

Cross-Cultural Effects of Cannabis Use Disorder: Evidence to Support a Cultural Neuroscience Approach

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Cannabis use disorders (CUDs) are prevalent worldwide. Current epidemiological studies underscore differences in behaviors that contribute to cannabis use across cultures that can be leveraged towards prevention and treatment of CUDs. This review proposes a framework for understanding the effects of cross-cultural differences on psychological, neural, and genomic processes underlying CUDs that has the potential to inform global policies and impact global public health.

RECENT FINDINGS

We found that cultural factors may influence (1) the willingness to acknowledge CUD-related symptoms among populations of different countries, and (2) neural responses related to the sense of self, perception, emotion, and attention. These findings leverage the potential effects of culture on neural mechanisms underlying CUDs.

SUMMARY

As the number of individuals seeking treatment for CUDs increases globally, it is imperative to incorporate cultural considerations to better understand and serve differing populations and develop more targeted treatment strategies and interventions.

Distinct effects of reminding mortality and physical pain on the default-mode activity and activity underlying self-reflection

Behavioral research suggests that reminding both mortality and negative affect influences self-related thoughts. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we tested the hypothesis that reminders of mortality and physical pain decrease brain activity underlying self-related thoughts. Three groups of adults underwent priming procedures during which they answered questions pertaining to mortality, physical pain, or leisure time, respectively. Before and after priming, participants performed personality trait judgments on oneself or a celebrity, identified the font of words, or passively viewed a fixation. The default-mode activity and neural activity underlying self-reflection were identified by contrasting viewing a fixation vs. font judgment and trait judgments on oneself vs. a celebrity, respectively. The analyses of the pre-priming functional MRI (fMRI) data identified the default-mode activity in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), and parahippocampal gyrus, and the activity underlying instructed self-reflection in both the ventral and dorsal regions of the MPFC. The analyses of the post-priming fMRI data revealed that, relative to leisure time priming, reminding mortality significantly reduced the default-mode PCC activity, and reminding physical pain significantly decreased the dorsal MPFC activity during instructed self-reflection. Our findings suggest distinct neural underpinnings of the effect of reminding morality and aversive emotion on default-mode and instructed self-reflection.

The Neural Responses to Social Cooperation in Gain and Loss Context

Cooperation is pervasive and constitutes the core behavioral principle of human social life. Previous studies have revealed that mutual cooperation was reliably correlated with two reward-related brain regions, the ventral striatum and the orbitofrontal cortex. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study sought to investigate how the loss and gain contexts modulated the neural responses to mutual cooperation. Twenty-five female participants were scanned when they played a series of one-shot prisoner’s dilemma games in the loss and gain contexts. Specifically, participants and partners independently chose to either cooperate with each other or not, and each was awarded or deprived of (in the gain context or the loss context, respectively) a sum of money which depended upon the interaction of their choices. Behavioral results indicated that participants cooperated in nearly half of the experiment trials and reported higher level of positive emotions for mutual cooperation in both contexts, but they cooperated more in the gain than in the loss context. At the neural level, stronger activities in the orbitofrontal cortex were observed for mutual cooperation compared with the other three outcomes in both contexts, while stronger activation in ventral striatum associated with mutual cooperation was observed in the gain context only. Together, our data indicated that, even in the one-shot interaction under loss context, participants still exhibited preference for cooperation and the rewarding experience from a mutually cooperative social interaction activated the ventral striatum and the orbitofrontal cortex, but the loss context weakened the association between the ventral striatum activation and mutual cooperation.

Actor-recipient role affects neural responses to self in emotional situations

People often take either the role of an actor or that of recipient in positive and negative interpersonal events when they interact with others. The present study investigated how the actor-recipient role affected the neural responses to self in emotional situations. Twenty-five participants were scanned while they were presented with positive and negative interpersonal events and were asked to rate the degree to which the actor/the recipient was that kind of person who caused the interpersonal event. Half of the trials were self-relevant events and the other half were other-relevant events. Results showed that people were more likely to isolate self from negative events when they played the role of actor relative to recipient. Pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) and posterior dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (pdACC) were more active for self than other only in negative events. More importantly, also in negative interpersonal events, dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) showed greater self-related activations (self-other) when participants played the role of recipient relative to actor, while activities in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) were greater for self than other only when the evaluation target played the role of recipient. These results showed that the actor-recipient role affected neural responses to self in emotional situations, especially when a recipient role was played in negative situations.

Effects of an 8-week meditation program on the implicit and explicit attitudes toward religious/spiritual self-representations

Explicit self-representations often conflict with implicit and intuitive self-representations, with such discrepancies being seen as a source of psychological tension. Most of previous research on the psychological effects of mindfulness-meditation has assessed people's self-attitudes at an explicit level, leaving unknown whether mindfulness-meditation promotes changes on implicit self-representations. Here, we assessed the changes in implicit and explicit self-related religious/spiritual (RS) representations in healthy participants following an 8-week mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) program. Before and after meditation, participants were administered implicit (implicit association test) and explicit (self-reported questionnaires) RS measures. Relative to control condition, MOM led to increases of implicit RS in individuals whit low pre-existing implicit RS and to more widespread increases in explicit RS. On the assumption that MOM practice may enhance the clarity of one's transcendental thoughts and feelings, we argued that MOM allows people to transform their intuitive feelings of implicit RS as well as their explicit RS attitudes.

Shared beliefs enhance shared feelings: religious/irreligious identifications modulate empathic neural responses

Recent neuroimaging research has revealed stronger empathic neural responses to same-race compared to other-race individuals. Is the in-group favouritism in empathic neural responses specific to race identification or a more general effect of social identification-including those based on religious/irreligious beliefs? The present study investigated whether and how intergroup relationships based on religious/irreligious identifications modulate empathic neural responses to others' pain expressions. We recorded event-related brain potentials from Chinese Christian and atheist participants while they perceived pain or neutral expressions of Chinese faces that were marked as being Christians or atheists. We found that both Christian and atheist participants showed stronger neural activity to pain (versus neutral) expressions at 132-168 ms and 200-320 ms over the frontal region to those with the same (versus different) religious/irreligious beliefs. The in-group favouritism in empathic neural responses was also evident in a later time window (412-612 ms) over the central/parietal regions in Christian but not in atheist participants. Our results indicate that the intergroup relationship based on shared beliefs, either religious or irreligious, can lead to in-group favouritism in empathy for others' suffering.

Neural dynamics necessary and sufficient for transition into pre-sleep induced by EEG neurofeedback

The transition from being fully awake to pre-sleep occurs daily just before falling asleep; thus its disturbance might be detrimental. Yet, the neuronal correlates of the transition remain unclear, mainly due to the difficulty in capturing its inherent dynamics. We used an EEG theta/alpha neurofeedback to rapidly induce the transition into pre-sleep and simultaneous fMRI to reveal state-dependent neural activity. The relaxed mental state was verified by the corresponding enhancement in the parasympathetic response. Neurofeedback sessions were categorized as successful or unsuccessful, based on the known EEG signature of theta power increases over alpha, temporally marked as a distinct "crossover" point. The fMRI activation was considered before and after this point. During successful transition into pre-sleep the period before the crossover was signified by alpha modulation that corresponded to decreased fMRI activity mainly in sensory gating related regions (e.g. medial thalamus). In parallel, although not sufficient for the transition, theta modulation corresponded with increased activity in limbic and autonomic control regions (e.g. hippocampus, cerebellum vermis, respectively). The post-crossover period was designated by alpha modulation further corresponding to reduced fMRI activity within the anterior salience network (e.g. anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula), and in contrast theta modulation corresponded to the increased variance in the posterior salience network (e.g. posterior insula, posterior cingulate cortex). Our findings portray multi-level neural dynamics underlying the mental transition from awake to pre-sleep. To initiate the transition, decreased activity was required in external monitoring regions, and to sustain the transition, opposition between the anterior and posterior parts of the salience network was needed, reflecting shifting from extra- to intrapersonal based processing, respectively.

Neural representations of the self and the mother for Chinese individuals

An important question in social neuroscience is the similarities and differences in the neural representations between the self and close others. Most studies examining this topic have identified the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) region as the primary area involved in this process. However, several studies have reported conflicting data, making further investigation of this topic very important. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we investigated the brain activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) when Chinese participants passively listened to their self-name (SN), their mother’s name (MN), and unknown names (UN). The results showed that compared with UN recognition, SN perception was associated with a robust activation in a widely distributed bilateral network, including the cortical midline structure (the MPFC and ACC), the inferior frontal gyrus, and the middle temporal gyrus. The SN invoked the bilateral superior temporal gyrus in contrast to the MN; the MN recognition provoked a stronger activation in the central and posterior brain regions in contrast to the SN recognition. The SN and MN caused an activation of overlapping areas, namely, the ACC, MPFC, and superior frontal gyrus. These results suggest that Chinese individuals utilize certain common brain region in processing both the SN and the MN. The present findings provide evidence for the neural basis of the self and close others for Chinese individuals.

Anterior insular cortex and emotional awareness

This paper reviews the foundation for a role of the human anterior insular cortex (AIC) in emotional awareness, defined as the conscious experience of emotions. We first introduce the neuroanatomical features of AIC and existing findings on emotional awareness. Using empathy, the awareness and understanding of other people's emotional states, as a test case, we then present evidence to demonstrate: 1) AIC and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are commonly coactivated as revealed by a meta-analysis, 2) AIC is functionally dissociable from ACC, 3) AIC integrates stimulus-driven and top-down information, and 4) AIC is necessary for emotional awareness. We propose a model in which AIC serves two major functions: integrating bottom-up interoceptive signals with top-down predictions to generate a current awareness state and providing descending predictions to visceral systems that provide a point of reference for autonomic reflexes. We argue that AIC is critical and necessary for emotional awareness.

Social cognition and the cerebellum: a meta-analysis of over 350 fMRI studies

This meta-analysis explores the role of the cerebellum in social cognition. Recent meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies since 2008 demonstrate that the cerebellum is only marginally involved in social cognition and emotionality, with a few meta-analyses pointing to an involvement of at most 54% of the individual studies. In this study, novel meta-analyses of over 350 fMRI studies, dividing up the domain of social cognition in homogeneous subdomains, confirmed this low involvement of the cerebellum in conditions that trigger the mirror network (e.g., when familiar movements of body parts are observed) and the mentalizing network (when no moving body parts or unfamiliar movements are present). There is, however, one set of mentalizing conditions that strongly involve the cerebellum in 50-100% of the individual studies. In particular, when the level of abstraction is high, such as when behaviors are described in terms of traits or permanent characteristics, in terms of groups rather than individuals, in terms of the past (episodic autobiographic memory) or the future rather than the present, or in terms of hypothetical events that may happen. An activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis conducted in this study reveals that the cerebellum is critically implicated in social cognition and that the areas of the cerebellum which are consistently involved in social cognitive processes show extensive overlap with the areas involved in sensorimotor (during mirror and self-judgments tasks) as well as in executive functioning (across all tasks). We discuss the role of the cerebellum in social cognition in general and in higher abstraction mentalizing in particular. We also point out a number of methodological limitations of some available studies on the social brain that hamper the detection of cerebellar activity.

Cortical midline structures and autobiographical-self processes: an activation-likelihood estimation meta-analysis

The autobiographical-self refers to a mental state derived from the retrieval and assembly of memories regarding one’s biography. The process of retrieval and assembly, which can focus on biographical facts or personality traits or some combination thereof, is likely to vary according to the domain chosen for an experiment. To date, the investigation of the neural basis of this process has largely focused on the domain of personality traits using paradigms that contrasted the evaluation of one’s traits (self-traits) with those of another person’s (other-traits). This has led to the suggestion that cortical midline structures (CMSs) are specifically related to self states. Here, with the goal of testing this suggestion, we conducted activation-likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analyses based on data from 28 neuroimaging studies. The ALE results show that both self-traits and other-traits engage CMSs; however, the engagement of medial prefrontal cortex is greater for self-traits than for other-traits, while the posteromedial cortex is more engaged for other-traits than for self-traits. These findings suggest that the involvement CMSs is not specific to the evaluation of one’s own traits, but also occurs during the evaluation of another person’s traits.

Does self-construal predict activity in the social brain network? A genetic moderation effect

Neural activity in the social brain network varies across individuals with different cultural traits and different genetic polymorphisms. It remains unknown whether a specific genetic polymorphism may influence the association between cultural traits and neural activity in the social brain network. We tested whether the serotonin transporter promoter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) affects the association between self-construals and neural activity involved in reflection of personal attributes of oneself and a significant other (i.e., mother). Using functional MRI, we scanned Chinese adults with short/short (s/s) or long/long (l/l) variants of the 5-HTTLPR during reflection of personal attributes of oneself and one's mother. We found that, while s/s and l/l genotype groups did not differ significantly in self-construals measured by the Self-Construal Scale, the relationship between self-construal scores and neural responses to reflection of oneself and mother was significantly different between the two genotype groups. Specifically, l/l but not s/s genotype group showed significant association between self-construal scores and activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, bilateral middle frontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, insula and hippocampus during reflection on mental attributes of oneself and mother. Our findings suggest that a specific genetic polymorphism may interact with a cultural trait to shape the neural substrates underlying social cognition.

Accessible cultural mind-set modulates default mode activity: evidence for the culturally situated brain

Self-construal priming modulates human behavior and associated neural activity. However, the neural activity associated with the self-construal priming procedure itself remains unknown. It is also unclear whether and how self-construal priming affects neural activity prior to engaging in a particular task. To address this gap, we scanned Chinese adults, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, during self-construal priming and a following resting state. We found that, relative to a calculation task, both interdependent and independent self-construal priming activated the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). The contrast of interdependent vs. independent self-construal priming also revealed increased activity in the dorsal MPFC and left middle frontal cortex. The regional homogeneity analysis of the resting-state activity revealed increased local synchronization of spontaneous activity in the dorsal MPFC but decreased local synchronization of spontaneous activity in the PCC when contrasting interdependent vs. independent self-construal priming. The functional connectivity analysis of the resting-state activity, however, did not show significant difference in synchronization of activities in remote brain regions between different priming conditions. Our findings suggest that accessible collectivistic/individualistic mind-set induced by self-construal priming is associated with modulations of both task-related and resting-state activity in the default mode network.

Neural oscillations dissociate between self-related attentional orientation versus evaluation

To investigate whether self-reflection on personality traits engages distinct neural mechanisms of self-related attentional orientation and self-related evaluation, we recorded electroencephalograms from adults while they made trait judgments about themselves and an age- and gender-matched friend, or judgments of word valence. Each trial consisted of a cue word that indicated a target person for trait judgment or instructed valence judgment, followed by a trait adjective to be evaluated. Using a wavelet analysis, we calculated time-frequency power at each electrode and phase synchrony between electrode pairs associated with self-, friend- or valence-cues and with trait adjectives during trait or valence judgments. Relative to friend- and valence-cues, self-cues elicited increased synchronous activity in delta (2-4Hz), theta (5-7Hz), alpha (8-13Hz), beta (14-26Hz), and gamma (28-40Hz) bands, and increased large-scale phase synchrony in these frequency bands. Self-related evaluation compared to friend-related evaluation during trait judgments induced stronger desynchronization in alpha, beta and gamma band activities, and decreased phase synchrony in alpha and gamma band activities. Our findings suggest that self-related attentional orientation and self-related evaluation engage distinct neural mechanisms that are respectively characterized by synchrony and desynchrony of neural activity in local assemblies and between long-distance brain regions.

Is it me or not me? Modulation of perceptual-motor awareness and visuomotor performance by mindfulness meditation

BACKGROUND

Attribution of agency involves the ability to distinguish our own actions and their sensory consequences which are self-generated from those generated by external agents. There are several pathological cases in which motor awareness is dramatically impaired. On the other hand, awareness-enhancement practices like tai-chi and yoga are shown to improve perceptual-motor awareness. Meditation is known to have positive impacts on perception, attention and consciousness itself, but it is still unclear how meditation changes sensorimotor integration processes and awareness of action. The aim of this study was to investigate how visuomotor performance and self-agency is modulated by mindfulness meditation. This was done by studying meditators' performance during a conflicting reaching task, where the congruency between actions and their consequences is gradually altered. This task was presented to novices in meditation before and after an intensive 8 weeks mindfulness meditation training (MBSR). The data of this sample was compared to a group of long-term meditators and a group of healthy non-meditators.

RESULTS

Mindfulness resulted in a significant improvement in motor control during perceptual-motor conflict in both groups. Novices in mindfulness demonstrated a strongly increased sensitivity to detect external perturbation after the MBSR intervention. Both mindfulness groups demonstrated a speed/accuracy trade-off in comparison to their respective controls. This resulted in slower and more accurate movements.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that mindfulness meditation practice is associated with slower body movements which in turn may lead to an increase in monitoring of body states and optimized re-adjustment of movement trajectory, and consequently to better motor performance. This extended conscious monitoring of perceptual and motor cues may explain how, while dealing with perceptual-motor conflict, improvement in motor control goes beyond the mere increase of movement time. The reduction of detection threshold in the MBSR group is also likely due to the enhanced monitoring of these processes. Our findings confirmed our assumptions about the positive effect of mindfulness on perceptual-motor integration processes.

Culture in social neuroscience: a review

The aim of this review is to highlight an emerging field: the neuroscience of culture. This new field links cross-cultural psychology with cognitive neuroscience across fundamental domains of cognitive and social psychology. We present a summary of studies on emotion, perspective-taking, memory, object perception, attention, language, and the self, showing cultural differences in behavior as well as in neural activation. Although it is still nascent, the broad impact of merging the study of culture with cognitive neuroscience holds mutual distributed benefits for multiple related fields. Thus, cultural neuroscience may be uniquely poised to provide insights and breakthroughs for longstanding questions and problems in the study of behavior and thought, and its capacity for integration across multiple levels of analysis is especially high. These findings attest to the plasticity of the brain and its adaptation to cultural contexts.

Self, memory, and the self-reference effect: an examination of conceptual and methodological issues

The author argues that the self is a multifaceted entity that does not easily submit to clear and precise description. The aspect of self studied by most investigators is actually a subset of the cognitive and neural underpinnings of "self" and not the "self" of first-person subjectivity. The author then looks at the dominant theoretical treatment of human long-term memory-the systems approach-and examines how the construct of "self" is situated in this framework. Finally, he reviews the best-known paradigm for exploring the role of self in memory-the self-reference effect (SRE) manipulation. He argues that there is not one SRE but rather a family of related SREs that are influenced by a variety of variables and contexts. Accordingly, researchers must exercise caution when attempting to draw conclusions about the self from the results of SRE memory performance.

How is our self related to midline regions and the default-mode network?

The problem of the self has been of increasing interest in recent neuroscience. Brain imaging studies have raised the question of whether neural activity in cortical midline regions is self-specific and whether self-specific activity is related to resting state activity (RSA). A quantitative meta-analysis that included 87 studies, representing 1433 participants, was conducted to discuss these questions. First, the specificity of the self (e.g. hearing one's own name, seeing one's own face) was tested and compared across familiar (using stimuli from personally known people) and other (non-self-non-familiar, i.e. strangers and widely-known figures) conditions. Second, the relationship between the self and resting state activity, as reflected by the default-mode network (DMN), was tested. The results indicated that the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (PACC) is specifically involved in self-processing when compared to familiarity, other, and task/stimulus effects. On the contrary, other midline regions, i.e., medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) were functionally unspecific as they were recruited during the processing of both self-specific and familiar stimuli. Finally, the PACC was recruited during self-specific stimuli and this activity overlapped with DMN activity during resting state, thus distinguishing the self-related processing from both that of the familiar and other conditions. Taken together, our data suggest that our sense of self may result from a specific kind of interaction between resting state activity and stimulus-induced activity, i.e., rest-stimulus interaction, within the midline regions.

Dissociation between anterior and posterior cortical regions during self-specificity and familiarity: a combined fMRI-meta-analytic study

The familiarity to the subject of any potential stimuli presents one of the major difficulties for the investigation of the self; the separation of effects resulting from familiarity from self-effects being extremely problematic. The aim of this study was thus to investigate the neural distinction between self and familiarity by combining two sets of fMRI data with a meta-analysis. In the first fMRI experiment, regions responding to self/familiarity were investigated using the subject's own name and names of familiar others. These effects were confirmed and extended in a second fMRI experiment using the subject's own name and a stranger's name, as spoken by familiar and unfamiliar voices. Finally, a meta-analysis of self- and familiarity-related studies was conducted. Neural activity in the anterior brain regions, such as the anterior cingulate (ACC) and anterior insula (AI), was found to be specific for self-specific stimuli. In contrast, posterior brain regions, such as the posterior cingulate, were activated by familiar stimuli. Finally, the distinction between anterior and posterior regions for self and familiarity was confirmed by meta-analytic data. This study demonstrates a clear anterior-posterior cortical partition between self-specificity and familiarity.

Cultural neuroscience of the self: understanding the social grounding of the brain

Cultural neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field of research that investigates interrelations among culture, mind and the brain. Drawing on both the growing body of scientific evidence on cultural variation in psychological processes and the recent development of social and cognitive neuroscience, this emerging field of research aspires to understand how culture as an amalgam of values, meanings, conventions, and artifacts that constitute daily social realities might interact with the mind and its underlying brain pathways of each individual member of the culture. In this article, following a brief review of studies that demonstrate the surprising degree to which brain processes are malleably shaped by cultural tools and practices, the authors discuss cultural variation in brain processes involved in self-representations, cognition, emotion and motivation. They then propose (i) that primary values of culture such as independence and interdependence are reflected in the compositions of cultural tasks (i.e. daily routines designed to accomplish the cultural values) and further (ii) that active and sustained engagement in these tasks yields culturally patterned neural activities of the brain, thereby laying the ground for the embodied construction of the self and identity. Implications for research on culture and the brain are discussed.

Higher cortical modulation of pain perception in the human brain: Psychological determinant

Pain perception and its genesis in the human brain have been reviewed recently. In the current article, the reports on pain modulation in the human brain were reviewed from higher cortical regulation, i.e. top-down effect, particularly studied in psychological determinants. Pain modulation can be examined by gene therapy, physical modulation, pharmacological modulation, psychological modulation, and pathophysiological modulation. In psychological modulation, this article examined (a) willed determination, (b) distraction, (c) placebo, (d) hypnosis, (e) meditation, (f) qi-gong, (g) belief, and (h) emotions, respectively, in the brain function for pain modulation. In each, the operational definition, cortical processing, neuroimaging, and pain modulation were systematically deliberated. However, not all studies had featured the brain modulation processing but rather demonstrated potential effects on human pain. In our own studies on the emotional modulation on human pain, we observed that emotions could be induced from music melodies or pictures perception for reduction of tonic human pain, mainly in potentiation of the posterior alpha EEG fields, likely resulted from underneath activities of precuneous in regulation of consciousness, including pain perception. To sum, higher brain functions become the leading edge research in all sciences. How to solve the information bit of thinking and feeling in the brain can be the greatest challenge of human intelligence. Application of higher cortical modulation of human pain and suffering can lead to the progress of social humanity and civilization.