Adaptive neural reward processing during anticipation and receipt of monetary rewards in mindfulness meditators
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience September 4, 2014 Ulrich Kirk, Kirk Warren Brown, Jonathan Downar 66 citations
Reward seeking is common and adaptive, but excessive pursuit of monetary rewards can reduce well-being. People trained in mindfulness meditation show lower brain reactivity to monetary incentives. In a functional MRI study, 34 meditators and 44 matched controls performed a monetary incentive delay task equally well, but meditators had lower activation in the caudate nucleus during reward anticipation and higher activation in the bilateral posterior insula. During reward receipt, meditators showed reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Connectivity between the right caudate and bilateral anterior insula was weaker in meditators during anticipation. These findings indicate that mindfulness meditators are less susceptible to monetary rewards at a neural level.