Decreased emotional reactivity after 3-month socio-affective but not attention- or meta-cognitive-based mental training: A randomized, controlled fMRI study

Meditation-based mental training interventions show great benefits for physical and mental health. However, it remains unclear how different types of mental practice differentially affect emotion processing at both the neuronal and the behavioural level. In the context of the ReSource project, 332 participants underwent an fMRI scan while performing an emotion reactivity task before and after three 3-month training modules cultivating 1) attention and interoceptive awareness (Presence); 2) socio-affective skills, such as compassion (Affect); 3) socio-cognitive skills, such as theory of mind (Perspective). Only the Affect module led to a significant reduction of experienced negative affect when processing images depicting human suffering. This decrease in emotion reactivity was associated with increased activation in cognitive control and emotion-regulation regions such as lateral parietal and prefrontal brain regions. We conclude that socio-affective, but not attention- or meta-cognitive based mental training is specifically efficient to improve emotion regulation capacities when facing adversity.