Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: Effects of meditative expertise

Abstract

Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the response to another's pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation practitioners generated a loving-kindness-compassion meditation state. To probe effective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds during the meditation and comparison periods. Our main hypothesis was that the contern for others cultivated during this form of medition enhances affective processing, in particularin response to sounds of distress, and that this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the degree of medication training. The presentattion of the emotional sonds was assoiciated with increased pupil diameter and activation of limbic regions (insula and cingulate cortices) during meditation (versus rest). During meditation, activation in insula was greater during presentation of negative sounds than positive or neutral sounds in expert than it was in novice meditators. The strength of activation in insula was also associated with self-reported intersity of the meditation for both groups. These results support the role of the limbic circuitry in emotion sharing. The comparison between meditation vs rest states between experts and novices also showed increased activation in amygdala, right temporo-paretal junction (TPJ), and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) in response to all sounds, suggesting, greater detection of the emotional sounds, and enhanced mentation in response to emotional human vocalizations for experts than novices during meditation. Together these data indicate that the mental expertise to cultivate positive emotion alters the activation of circuitries previously linked to empathy and theory of mind in response to emotional stimuli. © 2008 Lutz et al.