Whole-Brain Models of Minimal Phenomenal Experience: Approaching Criticality through Jhana Meditation

Abstract

Advanced meditation offers a powerful lens for investigating consciousness and for understanding how sustained training may contribute to human flourishing. In the spirit of neurophenomenology, we combine first-person reports with model-free empirical analyses and formal whole-brain modeling to investigate the mechanisms underlying advanced meditative states and minimal phenomenal experience (MPE). Specifically, we focus on jh[a]na meditation, a type of advanced concentrative absorption meditation (ACAM-J). Advanced practitioners accessed the eight ACAM-J states during ultra-high-field 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging. For each state, we first characterize empirical functional connectivity and then build a mechanistic whole-brain model that reproduces brain activity by modeling the dynamical regimes of different brain networks. We found that the later ACAM-J states, taken here as candidates for MPE, show increased large-scale functional integration and a shift of functional network dynamics toward near-critical working points. The default mode network (DMN) exhibits the largest shift, from a distant noise-driven regime during the control condition to near-critical dynamics during ACAM-J. We also observed that the trajectory of ACAM-J states is non-linear, with prominent reconfigurations at key meditative milestones. Our results suggest that MPE, as instantiated in later ACAM-J states, corresponds to a globally susceptible state where near-critical dynamics dominate. We interpret this near-critical regime as a form of "openness", in which constrained and differentiated patterns of brain activity give way to greater flexibility. In particular, increased DMN susceptibility is correlated with broader attention and reduced narrative thought, consistent with a more flexible mode of self-related processing. In this context, advanced meditation provides a powerful model for studying how sustained contemplative practice can profoundly shape brain dynamics and provide a window into core aspects of consciousness.