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Common and distinct neural substrates of the compassionate and uncompassionate self-responding dimensions of self-compassion

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Abstract

Self-compassion is beneficial for individuals’ emotional health, but debates regarding its conceptualization are increasing. The present study aimed to explore the neural basis of self-compassion and its compassionate and uncompassionate dimensions and the indirect path from neural basis to emotional health. Structural MRI and Resting-state fMRI data were used to measure the gray matter volume (GMV) and the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) in 88 healthy college students. We found that individuals with higher self-compassion had decreased GMV in the prefrontal cortex, cerebellum as well as lower ALFF in the occipital lobe. The compassionate and uncompassionate dimensions of self-compassion shared some similarities (e.g., common correlation with GMV in the medial prefrontal cortex, ALFF in the occipital lobe) but also had some differences (e.g., only uncompassionate dimensions correlated with GMV in the lateral prefrontal cortex, ALFF in medial temporal lobe/striatum). The indirect path analyses revealed that corresponding brain characteristics could have associations with emotional health through self-compassion, as well as its uncompassionate dimension, but not compassionate dimension. This exploratory whole-brain study showed some preliminary findings that compassionate and uncompassionate dimensions of self-compassion were related to distinct brain regions, which are both important to the current conceptualization of self-compassion and intervention study.

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Data availability

In this study, the dataset we used is relevant to another larger ongoing project. Since we are still working on analyses of the dataset, data are not available at this time unless upon reasonable requests.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700961), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2019A1515012148, 2022A1515012005), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Sun Yat-sen University (19wkzd20, 20wkzd13).

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  1. Yuyin Wang, Ruizhen Wu, and Liangfang Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Yuyin Wang, Ruizhen Wu, Liangfang Li, Junji Ma, Wanting Yang & Zhengjia Dai

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  1. Yuyin Wang
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  2. Ruizhen Wu
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  3. Liangfang Li
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  4. Junji Ma
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  5. Wanting Yang
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  6. Zhengjia Dai
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Contributions

YYW and ZJD designed the study. RZW, LFL, JJM, and ZJD analyzed the data. YYW, RZW, LFL and ZJD wrote the paper. LFL, JJM and WTY collaborated in writing the paper. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Zhengjia Dai.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board of Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University (201804160062) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Wang, Y., Wu, R., Li, L. et al. Common and distinct neural substrates of the compassionate and uncompassionate self-responding dimensions of self-compassion. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 2667–2680 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00723-9

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