Effects of compassion training on brain responses to suffering others

Abstract

What are the active ingredients and brain mechanisms of compassion training? To address these questions, we conducted a three-armed randomized trial (N = 57) of compassion meditation (CM). We compared a four-week CM program delivered by smartphone application to i) a placebo condition, in which participants inhaled sham oxytocin, which they were told would enhance compassion, and ii) a familiarity control condition, designed to control for increased familiarity with suffering others. Functional MRI was collected while participants listened to narratives describing suffering others at pre- and post-intervention. CM increased brain responses to suffering others in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) relative to both the placebo and familiarity control conditions, and in the nucleus accumbens relative to the familiarity control condition. Results support the specific efficacy of CM beyond effects of expectancy, demand characteristics, and increased familiarity with suffering others, and implicate affective and motivational pathways as brain mechanisms of CM. Author Note Funded by the John Templeton Foundation’s Positive Neuroscience project (PIs Wager and Dimidjian), with additional support from NIH R01 R01DA035484 (PI Wager). Gratitude to research assistants Jenifer Mutari, Robin Kay, Scott Meyers, Nicholas Peterson, and Brandin Williams for help with data collection.