Effects of compassion training on brain responses to suffering others.
Yoni K Ashar, Jessica R Andrews-Hanna, Joan Halifax, Sona Dimidjian, Tor D Wager
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience September 30, 2021 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab052 (opens in new tab) via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractA four-week compassion meditation program delivered via smartphone increased brain activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) when participants listened to stories of suffering others, compared with a condition that controlled for increased familiarity with suffering. Among compassion meditation participants, greater increases in mOFC activity correlated with greater self-reported compassion-related feelings and attributions. Compared with a placebo condition (presented as oxytocin), the meditation group showed a similar mOFC increase at an uncorrected statistical threshold. The authors conclude that the mOFC is an important brain mechanism of compassion meditation, that its effects are not explained by familiarity, and that they are partly explained by placebo effects.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Randomized controlled trial Placebo-controlled Longitudinal Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 57 |
| Population | Adults |
| Intervention | Compassion meditation |
| Duration | 4-week intervention |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Burnout Compassion training Empathy Placebo |
| Key finding | Compassion meditation increased brain responses in the medial orbitofrontal cortex to suffering others, and this increase correlated with self-reported compassion-related feelings and attributions. |
Abstract
Compassion meditation (CM) is a promising intervention for enhancing compassion, although its active ingredients and neurobiological mechanisms are not well-understood. To investigate these, we conducted a three-armed placebo-controlled randomized trial (N = 57) with longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We compared a 4-week CM program delivered by smartphone application with (i) a placebo condition, presented to participants as the compassion-enhancing hormone oxytocin, and (ii) a condition designed to control for increased familiarity with suffering others, an element of CM which may promote compassion. At pre- and post-intervention, participants listened to compassion-eliciting narratives describing suffering others during fMRI. CM increased brain responses to suffering others in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) relative to the familiarity condition, p < 0.05 family-wise error rate corrected. Among CM participants, individual differences in increased mOFC responses positively correlated with increased compassion-related feelings and attributions, r = 0.50, p = 0.04. Relative to placebo, the CM group exhibited a similar increase in mOFC activity at an uncorrected threshold of P < 0.001 and 10 contiguous voxels. We conclude that the mOFC, a region closely related to affiliative affect and motivation, is an important brain mechanism of CM. Effects of CM on mOFC function are not explained by familiarity effects and are partly explained by placebo effects.