Neurophysiological and behavioural markers of compassion

Abstract

The scientific study of compassion is burgeoning, however the putative neurophysiological markers of programs which actively train distress tolerance, such as Compassionate Mind Training (CMT), are less well known. Herein we offer an integrative, multi-method approach which investigated CMT at neural, physiological, self-report, and behavioural levels. Specifically, this study first assessed participants' neural responses when confronted with disappointments (e.g., rejection, failure) using two fundamental self-regulatory styles, self-criticism and self-reassurance. Second, participant's heartrate variability (HRV) -a marker of parasympathetic nervous system response -was assessed during compassion training, pre-and post-a two-week self-directed engagement period. We identified neural networks associated with threat are reduced when practicing compassion, and heightened when being self-critical. In addition, cultivating compassion was associated with increased parasympathetic response as measured by an increase in HRV, versus the resting-state. Critically, cultivating compassion was able to shift a subset of clinically-at risk participants to one of increased parasympathetic response. Further, those who began the trial with lower resting HRV also engaged more in the intervention, possibly as they derived more benefits, both self-report and physiologically, from engagement in compassion.

Self-reassurance reduces neural and self-report reactivity to negative life events

“…Whilst the program of research within the present paper has been reported on previously, this examined the (neuro)physiological correlates of a brief, two-week compassion training paradigm 4 Participants provided informed and voluntary, written and/or electronic consent.…”

“…These disappointments (e.g., making mistakes), losses (e.g., of hoped love) and fears (e.g., of rejection) are all triggers to self-criticism 3,4 . Indeed, self-criticism is a common relating style people use to cope, often resulting in an individual taking the frustration and anger out on themselves, which compounds the experience of pain psychologically and neurophysiologically 4 .…”

“…These disappointments (e.g., making mistakes), losses (e.g., of hoped love) and fears (e.g., of rejection) are all triggers to self-criticism 3,4 . Indeed, self-criticism is a common relating style people use to cope, often resulting in an individual taking the frustration and anger out on themselves, which compounds the experience of pain psychologically and neurophysiologically 4 . Whilst research has shown how self-criticism may increase both self-report 5,6 and neural 7,8 markers of pain, less well known is how self-reassurance -a compassionately-motivated cognitive relating style -may regulate how the brain responds toward negative life events.…”

Ways of Knowing Compassion: How Do We Come to Know, Understand, and Measure Compassion When We See It?

“…The researchers ultimately advocated increased specification of research targets and additional innovative methods to advance neurophysiological understandings of compassion ( Kim et al, 2020a ). Future research that combines multimodal physiological assessments will be informative for potentially providing convergent evidence about the bidirectional associations between multiple physiological systems important for compassion (e.g., see Nguyen et al, 2016 ; Petrocchi et al, 2017b ; Kim et al, 2020b ). Moreover, future studies combining neuroimaging assessments with behavioral and experience sampling methods will extend the ecological validity, precision, and discriminant validity of existing measures of compassion.…”

“…However, more recently, researchers have called into question whether the ratio of HF HRV to LF HRV is an accurate metric for the ratio between sympathetic and parasympathetic activity and identified alternate calculations of vagal tone as a more accurate reflection of the underlying physiology ( Heathers, 2014 ). HF HRV and the root mean-square of successive differences have both been used in recent research as a measure of autonomic control of the heart, mediated by the vagus nerve ( Matos et al, 2017 ; Petrocchi et al, 2017a ; Kim et al, 2020b ).…”