BOLD signal in insula is differentially related to cardiac function during compassion meditation in experts vs. novices
Section snippets
Participants
We selected the participants from our previous studies (Brefczynski-Lewis et al., 2007, Lutz et al., 2008a) for whom the heart beats were visible in the signal recorded by the pulse oximeter during the whole session. Participants from the current analysis included 10 long-term Buddhist practitioners whom we classified as experts (mean age = 40.0 years, std = 9.6 years,) and 13 healthy volunteers (mean age = 38.3 years, std = 9.1 years). The two groups did not differ in age (t-test, t(1,21) = − 0.3, p =
Effects of compassion state on HR
We investigated changes in HR as a function of block, state and group using an 8 × 2 × 2 factorial design (repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA)). Table 1 and Fig. 1 display the results. We found that HR was higher during compassion versus neutral states (main effect of state), and that this increase was stronger for the experts than the novices (the interaction between state and group is displayed in Table 1 and in Fig. 1). For experts, the mean HR was 64.2 (8.2 S.D.) and 67.1 (9.8 S.D.)
From empathy to compassion
In the current study, we found that changes in HR across states were positively associated with the right middle insula and somatosensory regions, right IPL and premotor regions (BA6), as well as right TPJ (Table 2). This pattern of neurovisceral coupling was more pronounced for experts than novices in the left hemisphere (left insula, left somatosensory cortex and left IPL) and in the mid-ACC (Table 3, Fig. 2). A growing number of neuroimaging studies have reported a similar pattern of
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge Dr. Matthieu Ricard for assistance with task design, participant recruitment and written meditation instructions and Dr. John Dunne for Tibetan translation and clarifications on Buddhist meditative techniques. We also thank the Mind and Life Institute for helping to facilitate this work and Helen Weng, for helpful comments on a preliminary version of the manuscript. This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH P50-MH069315 to
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