Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience January 1, 2012 Gaelle Desbordes, Lobsang T. Negi, Thaddeus W. W. Pace et al. 445 citations
Eight weeks of mindfulness meditation training reduced right amygdala activation in healthy adults when viewing positive emotional images, even when they were not actively meditating. A compassion-based meditation program showed a trend toward increased right amygdala response to negative images, which correlated with lower depression scores. No changes occurred in a control group. The results suggest meditation training can alter emotional processing in the brain during ordinary, non-meditative states, indicating that such training may produce lasting, process-specific changes in mental function rather than only task-specific effects.