The Effect of Compassion-based Meditative Practice on Systems Mediating Cooperative Behavior: Evidence Linking Physiology to Behavior

This study investigated the effects of compassion-based meditation on the neural correlates of cooperative behavior, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while participants engaged in economic decision games. Participants received training in either Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM) or Mindfulness for Breathing Meditation (MBM) prior to interacting in the Trust Game (TG). MBM was used as an active control group, to compare the effect of compassion-based meditation on the neural correlates of cooperative behavior, over the effects of meditation in general. Controlling for initial trust, participants trained in LKM exhibited significantly greater trustworthiness in the TG compared to participants trained in MBM, and displayed significantly greater reciprocity. The time onset of trustworthiness and reciprocity was marked by a relative decrease in activation in the ventral striatum in LKM, compared to MBM participants, while the onset of trust was marked by a relative increase in activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex.;The results of this study indicate that LKM leads to greater benevolence toward partners in a cooperative interaction when making decisions to return trust, compared to other meditation practices. Additionally, trust itself is associated with regions of the brain implicated in increased cognitive control and down-regulation of selfish impulses. These findings help to inform a body of literature on the effects of meditation on cognitive and affective abilities, by testing trained meditators using live social tasks. The results indicate that training in LKM affects cooperative behavior by changing the subjective value associated with reciprocity and by increasing cognitive regulation of trust behavior.