Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state

Abstract

The amygdala has been repeatedly implicated in emotional processing of both positive and negative-valence stimuli. Previous studies suggest that the amygdala response to emotional stimuli is lower when the subject is in a meditative state of mindful-attention, both in beginner meditators after an 8-week meditation intervention and in expert meditators. However, the longitudinal effects of meditation training on amygdala responses have not been reported when participants are in an ordinary, non-meditative state. In this study, we investigated how 8 weeks of training in meditation affects amygdala responses to emotional stimuli in subjects when in a non-meditative state. Healthy adults with no prior meditation experience took part in 8 weeks of either Mindful Attention Training (MAT), Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT; a program based on Tibetan Buddhist compassion meditation practices), or an active control intervention. Before and after the intervention, participants underwent an fMRI experiment during which they were presented images with positive, negative, and neutral emotional valences from the IAPS database while remaining in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Using a region-of-interest analysis, we found a longitudinal decrease in right amygdala activation in the Mindful Attention group in response to positive images, and in response to images of all valences overall. In the CBCT group, we found a trend increase in right amygdala response to negative images, which was significantly correlated with a decrease in depression score. No effects or trends were observed in the control group. This finding suggests that the effects of meditation training on emotional processing might transfer to non-meditative states. This is consistent with the hypothesis that meditation training may induce learning that is not stimulus- or task-specific, but process-specific, and thereby may result in enduring changes in mental function.

Neural stress reactivity relates to smoking outcomes and differentiates between mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral treatments

“…Following 8 weeks of mindfulness training, Goldin and Gross (2010) reported faster decrease in amygdala activity to negative self-beliefs in socially anxious patients. Similarly, reductions in amygdala activity to negative emotional images was reported in healthy adults following training (Desbordes et al, 2012). Studies with trait mindfulness are also consistent with reduced reactivity to affective stimuli: higher trait mindfulness is associated with lower amygdala reactivity to negative faces (Creswell, Way, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2007), lower resting-state amygdala activity (Way, Creswell, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2010) and smaller amygdala volume (Taren, Creswell, & Gianaros, 2013).…”

Mindfulness meditation regulates anterior insula activity during empathy for social pain

“…The results might indicate that interoceptive sharing of others' social suffering is reduced only by this state of mindfulness and nonjudgmental attention to experiences in the present moment, which is associated with decreased levels of distress [Khoury et al, ], as well as potentially a compassionate mindset. While there are studies speaking in favor of more persistent effects of meditation like structural changes of the AI [Laneri et al, ; Lazar et al, ], and previous longitudinal training studies did find outlasting effects of, for example, altered amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli transferring to non‐meditative states [Desbordes et al, ], most studies did not directly investigate state versus trait effects [for further discussion see Fox et al, ]. Nevertheless, there are other findings pointing toward specific meditation state effects that do not manifest in the absence of any meditative practice at least for specific tasks or circumstances like effects on somatosensory brain representations of interoceptive states [see Lutz et al, ].…”

Self‐compassion moderates the predictive effects of implicit cognitions on subjective well‐being

“…Training programs that teach people how to increase their levels of self‐compassion have demonstrated a wide range of physiological (Arch et al, ; Desbordes et al, ), psychological (Neff & Germer, ; Shapira & Mongrain, ; Smeets, Neff, Alberts, & Peters, ), and therapeutic benefits (Braehler et al, ; Hofmann, Grossman, & Hinton, ). Arguably the two most prominent self‐compassion training programs are compassion‐focused therapy (Gilbert, ) and mindful self‐compassion (Neff & Germer, ).…”