Visual Attention to Suffering After Compassion Training Is Associated With Decreased Amygdala Responses.
Helen Y. Weng, Regina C Lapate, Diane E. Stodola, Gregory M Rogers, Richard J. Davidson
Frontiers in Psychology 2018 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00771 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Healthy adults |
| Interventions | Compassion meditation training Reappraisal training |
| Duration | 2-week intervention |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Amygdala Compassion Visual attention |
| Key findings | Increases in visual preference for suffering due to compassion training were associated with decreases in amygdala activity, and this pattern was specific to the compassion group and not found in the reappraisal group. |
Abstract
Compassion meditation training is hypothesized to increase the motivational salience of cues of suffering, while also enhancing equanimous attention and decreasing emotional reactivity to suffering. However, it is currently unknown how compassion meditation impacts visual attention to suffering, and how this impacts neural activation in regions associated with motivational salience as well as aversive responses, such as the amygdala. Healthy adults were randomized to 2 weeks of compassion or reappraisal training. We measured BOLD fMRI responses before and after training while participants actively engaged in their assigned training to images depicting human suffering or non-suffering. Eye-tracking data were recorded concurrently, and we computed looking time for socially and emotionally evocative areas of the images, and calculated visual preference for suffering vs. non-suffering. Increases in visual preference for suffering due to compassion training were associated with decreases in the amygdala, a brain region involved in negative valence, arousal, and physiological responses typical of fear and anxiety states. This pattern was specifically in the compassion group, and was not found in the reappraisal group. In addition, compassion training-related increases in visual preference for suffering were also associated with decreases in regions sensitive to valence and empathic distress, spanning the anterior insula and orbitofrontal cortex (while the reappraisal group showed the opposite effect). Examining visual attention alone demonstrated that engaging in compassion in general (across both time points) resulted in visual attention preference for suffering compared to engaging in reappraisal. Collectively, these findings suggest that compassion meditation may cultivate visual preference for suffering while attenuating neural responses in regions typically associated with aversive processing of negative stimuli, which may cultivate a more equanimous and nonreactive form of attention to stimuli of suffering.
Comparable studies
Other randomized controlled trials on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation Healthy employees in a work environment | 2003 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 41 |
| Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Recovered recurrently depressed patients | 2000 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 145 |
| Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Working adults | 2008 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 139 |
| Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation Undergraduate Chinese students | 2007 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 40 |
| Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: Replication and Exploration of Differential Relapse Prevention Effects. Recovered recurrently depressed patients | 2004 | Randomized controlled trial | n = 73 |
Citations in the library
Cited by 14
- Compassion as a Skill: A Comparison of Contemplative and Evolution-Based Approaches Mindfulness August 3, 2023
- Moving beyond the lab: investigating empathy through the Empirical 5E approach. Frontiers in Psychology 2023
- Compassion As an Intervention to Attune to Universal Suffering of Self and Others in Conflicts: A Translational Framework. Frontiers in Psychology 2020
- Exploration of Evolution-Informed Compassion-Focused Therapy and Buddhist Approaches to Insight Meditation: A Three-Way Exploration Mindfulness June 21, 2023
- Effects of meditation on neural responses to pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews July 1, 2024
and 9 more in the library
Cites 9
- Open hearts build lives: Positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology October 27, 2008
- Loving-kindness and compassion meditation: potential for psychological interventions. Clinical Psychology Review July 26, 2011
- Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. Emotion October 1, 2008
- Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012
- Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience February 19, 2015
and 4 more in the library