Distinct Neural Activity Associated with Focused-Attention Meditation and Loving-Kindness Meditation

Focused-attention meditation (FAM) and loving-kindness meditation (LKM) produce distinct patterns of brain activity during cognitive and emotional tasks. In a study of 44 male Chinese meditators, FAM practice was linked to expertise-related improvements in attention task performance and corresponding neural activation differences, while LKM did not carry over to attention performance. Both forms of meditation affected neural responses to affective pictures: during viewing of sad faces, FAM practitioners showed activation consistent with attention-related processing, whereas LKM experts showed responses more aligned with differentiating emotional contagion from compassion or emotional regulation. These findings provide the first report of distinct neural activity associated with these meditation forms during sustained attention and emotion processing.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study examined the dissociable neural effects of ānāpānasati (focused-attention meditation, FAM) and mettā (loving-kindness meditation, LKM) on BOLD signals during cognitive (continuous performance test, CPT) and affective (emotion-processing task, EPT, in which participants viewed affective pictures) processing. Twenty-two male Chinese expert meditators (11 FAM experts, 11 LKM experts) and 22 male Chinese novice meditators (11 FAM novices, 11 LKM novices) had their brain activity monitored by a 3T MRI scanner while performing the cognitive and affective tasks in both meditation and baseline states. We examined the interaction between state (meditation vs. baseline) and expertise (expert vs. novice) separately during LKM and FAM, using a conjunction approach to reveal common regions sensitive to the expert meditative state. Additionally, exclusive masking techniques revealed distinct interactions between state and group during LKM and FAM. Specifically, we demonstrated that the practice of FAM was associated with expertise-related behavioral improvements and neural activation differences in attention task performance. However, the effect of state LKM meditation did not carry over to attention task performance. On the other hand, both FAM and LKM practice appeared to affect the neural responses to affective pictures. For viewing sad faces, the regions activated for FAM practitioners were consistent with attention-related processing; whereas responses of LKM experts to sad pictures were more in line with differentiating emotional contagion from compassion/emotional regulation processes. Our findings provide the first report of distinct neural activity associated with forms of meditation during sustained attention and emotion processing.