Art Lessons

We could use a little extra compassion in this world. Thankfully, a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison says that we can train ourselves to be more compassionate and kind. Through a certain type of meditation, certain areas of the brain can be affected with the end of more empathy felt toward peoples’ mental states.

The study, published in the journal PLOS One, researched the effects of a Tibetan Buddhist compassion meditation on a group of 32 subjects by comparing the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results on a segment who were asked to take part in the technique, and their counterparts that were asked not to.

The scans of those who practiced the meditation showed that parts of the brain used to detect feelings and emotions were dramatically changed, proving that the brain can be trained in much the same way as learning a game or playing a musical instrument.

The study was a subtopic of an ongoing project by Richard Davidson, professor of psychiatry and psychology at UW-Madison and associate scientist Antoine Lutz. The larger investigation is with a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks and laypeople who have a minimum of 10,000 hours of meditation under their belts. For this particular study, Davidson and Lutz worked with 16 monks who were experts in compassion meditation practices. Their control group were 16 participants of a similar age range who were taught the fundamentals of this meditation technique two weeks prior to data gathering.

“Many contemplative traditions speak of loving-kindness as the wish for happiness for others and of compassion as the wish to relieve others’ suffering. Loving-kindness and compassion are central to the Dalai Lama’s philosophy and mission,” says Davidson. “We wanted to see how this voluntary generation of compassion affects the brain systems involved in empathy.”

Actual expertise on compassion meditation can only be garnered after years of practice. The amateur control group in the study first focused on loved ones, and were asked to wish them well-being. After a little practice, they were then asked to generate these same feelings toward all beings.

Afterwards, each of the 32 participants was placed in the fMRI scanner in the Waisman Center for Brain Imaging at the UW-Madison. Each were asked to either begin meditation or refrain. Subjects were then exposed to positive or negative vocalizations intended to evoke empathetic responses, as well as neutral sensory input. Some examples included a distressed woman, a baby laughing, and background restaurant noise.

“We used audio instead of visual challenges so that meditators could keep their eyes slightly open but not focused on any visual stimulus, as is typical of this practice,” explains Lutz.

What the scans revealed was activity in a region near the frontal area of the brain that plays a role in enacting bodily response to emotions, called the insula. The strength of insula activity was associated with the strength of compassion generation.

“The insula is extremely important in detecting emotions in general and specifically in mapping bodily responses to emotion — such as heart rate and blood pressure — and making that information available to other parts of the brain,” says Davidson.