Who is doing the loving? Selfreferential brain network activation during loving kindness meditation! Judson Brewer MD PhD Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic Assistant Professor Department of Psychiatry Yale University School of Medicine www.ytnc.yale.edu
Talking about ourselves is rewarding!
Nucleus Accumbens Tamir PNAS (2012)
“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9% of everything you think, And everything you do, Is for your self, And there isn't one.�!
-Wei Wu Wei
Expertise and approach • Expertise: – I’m an expert in suffering – 10,000+ hours of logged experience • Approach: – Clinical studies of mindfulness training for addictions (not presented today) – fMRI studies of experienced meditators • Neural mechanisms of meditation
Personal interest in compassion • I’m an expert in suffering!
CAR HONKS
Changes how we see the world
1
Cue/Trigger
(sight, smell, thought, emo.on, body sensa.on)
2
Pleasant 3
7
Unpleasant
CRAVING 4
Behavior 5
6
Birth (of self-identity)
Memory (“me”)
Brewer, Elwafi and Davis Psych of Addictive Behavior (2012)
METTA
How common is Mindlessness? • Prevalence: ~50% of waking life is spent mind-wandering. • No happier when mind is wandering vs. on task. • “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Killingsworth and Gilbert, Science 2010
Default Mode Network (DMN)
Andrews-Hanna Neuron (2010)
Overlap between DMN and Self-referential processing mPFC
PCC
Whitfield-Gabrieli Neuroimage (2011)
“Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.� " -William James
Experienced meditator study (n=12) Meditation hours Mindfulness Loving Kindness Other Total
7748.3+4250.5 1060.1+958.9 1756.8+2476.6 10565.2+5148.9
Mindfulness meditation practices Concentration
Lovingkindness
Choiceless Awareness
In the next period, please pay attention to the physical sensation of the breath wherever you feel it most strongly in the body. Follow the natural and spontaneous movement of the breath, not trying to change it in any way. Just pay attention to it. If you find that your attention has wandered to something else, gently but firmly bring it back to the physical sensation of the breath.
Please think of a time when you genuinely wished someone well (pause). Using this feeling as a focus, silently wish all beings well, by repeating a few short phrases of your choosing over and over (for example: May all beings be happy, may all beings be healthy, may all beings be safe from harm.)
In the next period please pay attention to whatever comes into your awareness, whether it is a thought, emotion, or body sensation. Just follow it until something else comes into your awareness, not trying to hold onto it or change it in any way. When something else comes into your awareness, just pay attention to it until the next thing comes along.
Attention directed at single (physical) object
Attention directed at physical and mental objects
Attention focused, but not directed to specific object
Task of MT? • The “task” common to all of these meditation techniques is the training of attention away from self-reference and mind-wandering and toward one’s immediate experience. • (Don’t feed the self!)
Task of MT? • (Don’t feed the self!) • Really? • How can you be doing something without you doing something? • “The sense of acceptance of present moment experience involves some kind of perspective on oneself. Likewise, the wish for others to be happy in the loving kindness meditation is a wish from someone, not no one, and embodies an action tendency and intentionality, which are aspects of self.” (NIH grant reviewer, 2011)
Trial Time Course baseline
2 min
Instructions
30 sec
Choiceless Loving Concentration Awareness Kindness Meditation Meditation 4.5 min
2x Trial (randomized between conditions)
Decreased DMN activity during meditation in experienced meditators (all meditations, Experienced > Novice)
x = -6
z = 21 Brewer et al PNAS (2011)
BOLD signal change (%)
x = -6 0.3
0.3
0.1
0.1
-0.1
-0.1
-0.3
-0.3
-0.5
-0.5
Meditators
Controls
z = 21
Meditators
Controls
Replication Study (n = 21 meditators, 27 controls) (Loving kindness, Experienced > Novice) PCC
x=3 FWE corrected, p < 0.05
Experienced meditators show decreased intrinsic connectivity during loving kindness meditation
x = -3 FWE corrected, p < 0.05
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.â&#x20AC;? ! -Richard Feynman
How do we confirm our findings? • Typical method: correlate with self-report • Self-report may not correlate well with activation patterns during “long” periods of meditation – Memory bias – Subjective bias • Can we reduce bias by providing real-time feedback?
Real-time meditation feedback baseline
1 min
“active” “dummy” meditate feedback feedback 3 min
Scheinost et al (under review)
Real-time Neurofeeback (PCC ROI) Novice Run 1 Increased self-related activation
Run 4
Decreased self-related activation
Expert
EXPERIENCED MEDITATOR Repeating name
Exploring image
Future thinking
On task
Run 1
Run 6
Experienced Meditator Concentration meditation
Loving kindness meditation
(the self is optional)
Experienced Meditator Tonglen meditation
Friend
Romantic Partner
Summary • DMN deactivates during meditation • PCC may be an important target of meditation – Deactivates during loving kindness (and other) meditation (2 studies) – Decreased intrinsic connectivity during loving kindness meditation • Realtime feedback may be useful: – for confirming results – Capturing variability within task blocks – Pointing out aspects of experience • Neurophenomenology (Varela, Lutz, Thompson)
What about compassion? • If compassion meditation is a selfless practice: – Should decrease PCC activity • Differentiate from empathy and others – Can neurofeedback from PCC be helpful for individuals learning to practice? • Follow outcomes: empathy fatigue, pro-social behavior etc.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whatever joy there is in this world All comes from desiring others to be happy, And whatever suffering there is in this world All comes from desiring myself to be happy.â&#x20AC;? !
-Shantideva
Many Thanks! Subjects Theresa Babuscio Keri Bergquist Sarah Bowen (UW) Willoughby Britton (Brown) Kathy Carroll Neha Chawla (UW) Justin Chen Michael Cohen Todd Constable Jake Davis (CUNY) Cameron Deleone Colin DeYoung Hani Elwafi
Reza Farajian Maolin Qiu Jeremy Gray Deidre Reis Michelle Hampson Hayley Bruce Rounsaville Johnson Dustin Scheinost Yoona Kang Rajita Sinha Hedy Kober Yi-Yuan Tang (UOregon) Cheryl Lacadie Tommy Thornhill Daniel Libby Nicholas Van Dam (SUNY) Sarah Mallik Katie Witkiewitz (WSU) G. Alan Marlatt (UW) Andrea Weinstein Candace Minnix-Cotton Jochen Weber Charla Nich Patrick Worhunsky Xenios Papademetris Marc Potenza
www.ytnc.yale.edu FUNDING: NIDA (R03 DA029163-01A1, K12 DA00167, P50 DA09241), Mind and Life Institute (Varela award), Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (UL1 RR024139),Yale Stress Center (UL1 DE019586-02), VAMC MIRECC
Loving-kindness
Concentration
(Experienced > Novice)
x = -6
y = -60
x = -6
y = -60
FWE corrected, p < 0.05