Publication

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

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Last modified
  • 03/03/2025
Type of Material
Authors
    Gaëlle Desbordes, Massachusetts General HospitalGeshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, Emory UniversityThaddeus Pace, Emory UniversityB. Allan Wallace, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness StudiesCharles Raison, Emory UniversityEric L. Schwartz, Boston University
Language
  • English
Date
  • 2012-11-01
Publisher
  • Frontiers Media
Publication Version
Copyright Statement
  • © 2012 Desbordes, Negi, Pace, Wallace, Raison and Schwartz.
License
Final Published Version (URL)
Title of Journal or Parent Work
ISSN
  • 1662-5161
Volume
  • 6
Issue
  • NOVEMBER 2012
Start Page
  • 292
End Page
  • 292
Grant/Funding Information
  • This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (R01AT004698 and R01AT004698-01A1S1, P.I. Raison; ARRA RC1AT005728, P.I. Schwartz).
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.
Author Notes
  • Correspondence: Gaëlle Desbordes, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, 149 Thirteenth St. Suite 2301, Boston, MA 02129, USA. e-mail: desbordes@gmail.com
Keywords
Research Categories
  • Psychology, Behavioral
  • Biology, Neuroscience

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