Mindfulness meditation changes how decisions are made

May, 2011

Another recent meditation study has found that experienced Buddhist meditators use different brain regions than controls when making decisions in a ‘fairness’ game.

The study involved 26 experienced Buddhist meditators and 40 control subjects. Scans of their brains while they played the "ultimatum game," in which the first player proposes how to divide a sum of money and the second can accept or reject the proposal, revealed that the two groups engaged different parts of the brain when making these decisions.

Consistent with earlier studies, controls showed increased activity in the anterior insula (involved in disgust and emotional reactions to unfairness and betrayal) when the offers were unfair. However the Buddhist meditators showed higher activity instead in the posterior insula (involved in interoception and attention to the present moment). In other words, rather than dwelling on emotional reactions and imaginary what-if scenarios, the meditators concentrated on the interoceptive qualities that accompany any reward, no matter how small.

The meditators accepted unfair offers on more than half of the trials, whereas controls only accepted unfair offers on a quarter of the trials.

Moreover, those controls who did in fact play the game ‘rationally’ (that is, mostly accepting the unfair offers) showed activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, while rational meditators displayed increased activity in the somatosensory cortex and posterior superior temporal cortex.

The most intriguing thing about all this is not so much that regular meditation might change the way your brain works (although that is undeniably interesting), but as a more general demonstration that we can train our brain to work in different ways. Something to add to the research showing how brain regions shift in function in those with physical damage to their brains or sense organs (eg, in those who become blind).

Reference: 

[2230] Kirk, U.
(2011).  Interoception drives increased rational decision-making in meditators playing the ultimatum game.
Frontiers in Decision Neuroscience. 5, 49 - 49.

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