Helen Y. Weng

Compassion Training Alters Altruism and Neural Responses to Suffering

Compassion is a key motivator of altruistic behavior, but little is known about individuals’ capacity to cultivate compassion through training. We examined whether compassion may be systematically trained by testing whether (a) short-term compassion training increases altruistic behavior and (b) individual differences in altruism are associated with training-induced changes in neural responses to suffering. In healthy adults, we found that compassion training increased altruistic redistribution of funds to a victim encountered outside of the training context. Furthermore, increased altruistic behavior after compassion training was associated with altered activation in brain regions implicated in social cognition and emotion regulation, including the inferior parietal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and in DLPFC connectivity with the nucleus accumbens. These results suggest that compassion can be cultivated with training and that greater altruistic behavior may emerge from increased engagement of neural systems implicated in understanding the suffering of other people, executive and emotional control, and reward processing.

Temporal dynamics of emotional responding: amygdala recovery predicts emotional traits

An individuals affective style is influenced by many things, including the manner in which an individual responds to an emotional challenge. Emotional response is composed of a number of factors, two of which are the initial reactivity to an emotional stimulus and the subsequent recovery once the stimulus terminates or ceases to be relevant. However, most neuroimaging studies examining emotional processing in humans focus on the magnitude of initial reactivity to a stimulus rather than the prolonged response. In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the time course of amygdala activity in healthy adults in response to presentation of negative images. We split the amygdala time course into an initial reactivity period and a recovery period beginning after the offset of the stimulus. We find that initial reactivity in the amygdala does not predict trait measures of affective style. Conversely, amygdala recovery shows predictive power such that slower amygdala recovery from negative images predicts greater trait neuroticism, in addition to lower levels of likability of a set of social stimuli (neutral faces). These data underscore the importance of taking into account temporal dynamics when studying affective processing using neuroimaging.

Mind-body interactions in the regulation of airway inflammation in asthma: A PET study of acute and chronic stress.

BACKGROUND Psychological stress has long been recognized as a contributing factor to asthma symptom expression and disease progression. Yet, the neural mechanisms that underlie this relationship have been largely unexplored in research addressing the pathophysiology and management of asthma. Studies that have examined the mechanisms of this relationship in the periphery suggest that it is the superimposition of acute stress on top of chronic stress that is of greatest concern for airway inflammation. METHODS We compared asthmatic individuals with high and low levels of chronic life stress in their neural and peripheral physiological responses to the Trier Social Stress Test and a matched control task. We used FDG-PET to measure neural activity during performance of the two tasks. We used both circulating and airway-specific markers of asthma-related inflammation to assess the impact of acute stress in these two groups. RESULTS Asthmatics under chronic stress had a larger HPA-axis response to an acute stressor, which failed to show the suppressive effects on inflammatory markers observed in those with low chronic stress. Moreover, our PET data suggest that greater activity in the anterior insula during acute stress may reflect regulation of the effect of stress on inflammation. In contrast, greater activity in the mid-insula and perigenual anterior cingulate seems to reflect greater reactivity and was associated with greater airway inflammation, a more robust alpha amylase response, and a greater stress-induced increase in proinflammatory cytokine mRNA expression in airway cells. CONCLUSIONS Acute stress is associated with increases in markers of airway inflammation in asthmatics under chronic stress. This relationship may be mediated by interactions between the insula and anterior cingulate cortex, that determine the salience of environmental cues, as well as descending regulatory influence of inflammatory pathways in the periphery.

The Role of Compassion in Altruistic Helping and Punishment Behavior

Compassion, the emotional response of caring for another who is suffering and that results in motivation to relieve suffering, is thought to be an emotional antecedent to altruistic behavior. However, it remains unclear whether compassion enhances altruistic behavior in a uniform way or is specific to sub-types of behavior such as altruistic helping of a victim or altruistic punishment of a transgressor. We investigated the relationship between compassion and subtypes of altruistic behavior using third-party paradigms where participants 1) witnessed an unfair economic exchange between a transgressor and a victim, and 2) had the opportunity to either spend personal funds to either economically a) help the victim or b) punish the transgressor. In Study 1, we examined whether individual differences in self-reported empathic concern (the emotional component of compassion) was associated with greater altruistic helping or punishment behavior in two independent samples. For participants who witnessed an unfair transaction, trait empathic concern was associated with greater helping of a victim and had no relationship to punishment. However, in those who decided to punish the transgressor, participants who reported greater empathic concern decided to punish less. In Study 2, we directly enhanced compassion using short-term online compassion meditation training to examine whether altruistic helping and punishment were increased after two weeks of training. Compared to an active reappraisal training control group, the compassion training group gave more to help the victim and did not differ in punishment of the transgressor. Together, these two studies suggest that compassion is related to greater altruistic helping of victims and is not associated with or may mitigate altruistic punishment of transgressors.

Fusiform Gyrus Dysfunction is Associated with Perceptual Processing Efficiency to Emotional Faces in Adolescent Depression: A Model-Based Approach.

While the extant literature has focused on major depressive disorder (MDD) as being characterized by abnormalities in processing affective stimuli (e.g., facial expressions), little is known regarding which specific aspects of cognition influence the evaluation of affective stimuli, and what are the underlying neural correlates. To investigate these issues, we assessed 26 adolescents diagnosed with MDD and 37 well-matched healthy controls (HCL) who completed an emotion identification task of dynamically morphing faces during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We analyzed the behavioral data using a sequential sampling model of response time (RT) commonly used to elucidate aspects of cognition in binary perceptual decision making tasks: the Linear Ballistic Accumulator (LBA) model. Using a hierarchical Bayesian estimation method, we obtained group-level and individual-level estimates of LBA parameters on the facial emotion identification task. While the MDD and HCL groups did not differ in mean RT, accuracy, or group-level estimates of perceptual processing efficiency (i.e., drift rate parameter of the LBA), the MDD group showed significantly reduced responses in left fusiform gyrus compared to the HCL group during the facial emotion identification task. Furthermore, within the MDD group, fMRI signal in the left fusiform gyrus during affective face processing was significantly associated with greater individual-level estimates of perceptual processing efficiency. Our results therefore suggest that affective processing biases in adolescents with MDD are characterized by greater perceptual processing efficiency of affective visual information in sensory brain regions responsible for the early processing of visual information. The theoretical, methodological, and clinical implications of our results are discussed.

The neuroscience and context of adolescent depression.

Adolescent depression is a growing public health concern with an increased risk of negative health outcomes, including suicide. The use of antidepressants and psychotherapy has not halted its increasing prevalence, and there is a critical need for effective prevention and treatment. We reviewed the neuroscience of adolescent depression, with a focus on the neurocircuitry of sustained threat and summarised contextual factors that have an impact on brain development and the pathophysiology of depression. We also reviewed novel treatment models.

Feasibility and Preliminary Efficacy of a Novel RDoC-Based Treatment Program for Adolescent Depression : "Training for Awareness Resilience and Action" (TARA)-A Pilot Study

Background The novel group treatment program Training for Awareness, Resilience, and Action (TARA) was developed to target specific mechanisms based on neuroscience findings in adolescent depression and framed within the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria. TARA contains training of autonomic and emotional self-regulation, interoceptive awareness, relational skills, and value-based committed action. Methods We performed a single-arm trial to test the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of TARA in reducing depression and anxiety levels and assessed whether the specific targeted domains of function reflected the hypothesized symptom change. Twenty-six adolescents (14–18 years old, 7 males and 19 females) participated in the 12-week group program. Assessment was performed before (T0), immediately after (T1), and 3 months after the end of TARA (T2). Results Significant improvement was seen in depression symptoms (Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale Second Edition) between T0–T1 (t-value = −3.56, p = 0.002, CI = −6.64, −1.77) and T0–T2 (t-value = −4.17, p < 0.001, CI = −11.20, −3.75) and anxiety symptoms (Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children) between T0–T1 (t-value = −2.26, p = 0.033, CI = −4.61, −0.21) and T0–T2 (t-value = −3.06, p = 0.006, 95% confidence interval = −9.02, −1.73). Significant improvements in psychological flexibility, sleep, and mindfulness skills were also found between T0 and T2. Limitations The sample size was small without a control condition. The pilot design did not allow for testing the hypothesized brain changes and effect of TARA on relevant systemic biomarkers. Conclusion TARA is feasible in a sample of clinically depressed and/or anxious adolescents and preliminary efficacy was demonstrated by reduced depression and anxiety symptoms. The specific symptom and behavioral outcomes corresponded well with the hypothesized mechanisms of change.

An exploratory examination of reappraisal success in depressed adolescents: Preliminary evidence of functional differences in cognitive control brain regions.

BACKGROUND Most neuroimaging studies of adolescent depression employ tasks not designed to engage brain regions necessary for the cognitive control of emotion, which is central to many behavioral therapies for depression. Depressed adults demonstrate less effective activation of these regions and greater amygdala activation during cognitive reappraisal; we examined whether depressed adolescents show similar patterns of brain activation. METHODS We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data during cognitive reappraisal in 41 adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 34 matched controls (ages 13-17). We examined group differences in (1) activations associated with reappraisal and reappraisal success (i.e., negative affect reduction during reappraisal) using whole brain and amygdala region-of-interest analyses, and (2) functional connectivity of regions from the group-by-reappraisal success interaction. RESULTS We found no significant group differences in whole brain or amygdala analyses during reappraisal. In the group-by-reappraisal success interaction, activations in the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and left dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) were associated with reappraisal success in healthy controls but not depressed adolescents. Depressed adolescents demonstrated reduced connectivity between the left dmPFC and the anterior insula/inferior frontal gyri bilaterally (AI/IFG) and between left dlPFC and left AI/IFG. LIMITATIONS Our results should be considered exploratory given our less conservative statistical threshold in the group-by-reappraisal interaction. CONCLUSIONS We find preliminary evidence that depressed adolescents engage cognitive control regions less efficiently than healthy controls, suggesting delayed maturation of regulatory prefrontal cortex regions; more research is needed to determine whether cognitive therapies improve functioning of these regions in depressed youth.

Visual Attention to Suffering After Compassion Training Is Associated With Decreased Amygdala Responses

Compassion meditation training is hypothesized to increase the motivational salience of cues of suffering, while also enhancing equanimous attention and decreasing emotional reactivity to suffering. However, it is currently unknown how compassion meditation impacts visual attention to suffering, and how this impacts neural activation in regions associated with motivational salience as well as aversive responses, such as the amygdala. Healthy adults were randomized to 2 weeks of compassion or reappraisal training. We measured BOLD fMRI responses before and after training while participants actively engaged in their assigned training to images depicting human suffering or non-suffering. Eye-tracking data were recorded concurrently, and we computed looking time for socially and emotionally evocative areas of the images, and calculated visual preference for suffering vs. non-suffering. Increases in visual preference for suffering due to compassion training were associated with decreases in the amygdala, a brain region involved in negative valence, arousal, and physiological responses typical of fear and anxiety states. This pattern was specifically in the compassion group, and was not found in the reappraisal group. In addition, compassion training-related increases in visual preference for suffering were also associated with decreases in regions sensitive to valence and empathic distress, spanning the anterior insula and orbitofrontal cortex (while the reappraisal group showed the opposite effect). Examining visual attention alone demonstrated that engaging in compassion in general (across both time points) resulted in visual attention preference for suffering compared to engaging in reappraisal. Collectively, these findings suggest that compassion meditation may cultivate visual preference for suffering while attenuating neural responses in regions typically associated with aversive processing of negative stimuli, which may cultivate a more equanimous and nonreactive form of attention to stimuli of suffering.

Corrigendum to “Mind-body interactions in the regulation of airway inflammation in asthma: A PET study of acute and chronic stress” [Brain Behav. Immun. 58 (2016) 18–30]

Please cite this article in press as: Rosenkranz, M.A., et al. Corrigendum to ‘‘Mind-body interactions in the regulation of airway inflammation in ast PET study of acute and chronic stress” [Brain Behav. Immun. 58 (2016) 18–30]. Brain Behav. Immun. (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2017 Melissa A. Rosenkranz a,⇑, Stephane Esnault , Bradley T. Christian , Gina Crisafi , Lauren K. Gresham , Andrew T. Higgins , Mollie N. Moore , Sarah M. Moore , Helen Y. Weng , Rachel H. Salk , William W. Busse , Richard J. Davidson a,d,g