RD here's the most recent cite (older one was the one from Monks, In
the Lab and IIRC a study coded for micro-expressions in Paul Ekman's
system), this one is while in an fMRI (thus they listen to sounds).
There should be some new data eventually from the Shamatha Project
findings.
http://www.box.net/shared/zfinn3n4so
Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by
Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise
Antoine Lutz1*, Julie Brefczynski-Lewis2, Tom Johnstone3, Richard J.
Davidson1*
1 University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of
America, 2 West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia,
United States of America, 3 University of
Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
Abstract
Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior
cingulate cortices in the empathic 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 affective reactivity, we presented emotional and neutral sounds
during the meditation and comparison periods.
Our main hypothesis was that the concern for others cultivated during
this form of meditation enhances affective
processing, in particular in response to sounds of distress, and that
this response to emotional sounds is modulated by the
degree of meditation training. The presentation of the emotional
sounds was associated 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 intensity 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-parietal 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.
Citation: Lutz A, Brefczynski-Lewis J, Johnstone T, Davidson RJ
(2008) Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion
Meditation: Effects of
Meditative Expertise. PLoS ONE 3(3): e1897. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.
0001897
Editor: Bernhard Baune, James Cook University, Australia
Received November 30, 2007; Accepted February 15, 2008; Published
March 26, 2008
Copyright: 2008 Lutz et al. This is an open-access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original author and source are credited.
Funding: Support was provided by NCCAM U01AT002114-01A1, Fyssen
foundation to AL and NIMH P50-MH069315 to RJD, and by gifts from
Adrianne and
Edwin Cook-Ryder, Bryant Wangard and Ralph Robinson, Keith and Arlene
Bronstein and the John W. Kluge Foundation. No funders or sponsors
participated in
the design or conduct of the study, or in the analysis, and
interpretation of the data, or in the preparation, review, or
approval of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing
interests exist.
Introduction
Many contemplative traditions speak of loving-kindness as the
wish of happiness for others, and of compassion as the wish to
relieve others’ suffering. In many traditions, these qualities are
cultivated through specific meditation practices designed to prime
behaviors compatible with these wishes in response to actual
interpersonal encounters. Despite the potential social and clinical
importance of these affective processes, the possibility that they
can be trained in a manner comparable to attentional [1] or
sensory-motor skills [2] has not yet been investigated with
neuroimaging techniques, even though recent electrophysiological
data support this hypothesis [3].
