Background and ObjectivesHuman morality has been investigated using a variety of tasks ranging from judgments of hypothetical dilemmas to viewing morally salient stimuli. These experiments have provided insight into neural correlates of moral judgments and emotions, yet these approaches reveal important differences in moral cognition. Moral reasoning tasks require active deliberation while moral emotion tasks involve the perception of stimuli with moral implications. We examined convergent and divergent brain activity associated with these experimental paradigms taking a quantitative meta-analytic approach.Data SourceA systematic search of the literature yielded 40 studies. Studies involving explicit decisions in a moral situation were categorized as active (n = 22); studies evoking moral emotions were categorized as passive (n = 18). We conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis using the Activation Likelihood Estimation to determine reliable patterns of brain activity.Results & ConclusionsResults revealed a convergent pattern of reliable brain activity for both task categories in regions of the default network, consistent with the social and contextual information processes supported by this brain network. Active tasks revealed more reliable activity in the temporoparietal junction, angular gyrus and temporal pole. Active tasks demand deliberative reasoning and may disproportionately involve the retrieval of social knowledge from memory, mental state attribution, and construction of the context through associative processes. In contrast, passive tasks reliably engaged regions associated with visual and emotional information processing, including lingual gyrus and the amygdala. A laterality effect was observed in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, with active tasks engaging the left, and passive tasks engaging the right. While overlapping activity patterns suggest a shared neural network for both tasks, differential activity suggests that processing of moral input is affected by task demands. The results provide novel insight into distinct features of moral cognition, including the generation of moral context through associative processes and the perceptual detection of moral salience.

Objective We investigated common and dissociable neural and psychological correlates of two widely used meditation-based stress-reduction programs. Methods Participants were randomized to the Relaxation Response (RR; n=18; 56% female) or the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; n=16, 56% female) programs. Both programs utilize a ‘bodyscan’ meditation, however the RR program explicitly emphasizes physical relaxation during this practice, while the MBSR program emphasizes mindful awareness with no explicit relaxation instructions. Following the programs, neural activity during the respective meditation was investigated using fMRI. Results Both programs were associated with reduced stress (for RR, from 14.1±6.6 to11.3± 5.5; Cohen’s d=0.50; for MBSR, from 17.7±5.7 to 11.9±5.0; Cohen’s d= 1.02). Conjunction analyses revealed functional coupling between ventromedial prefrontal regions and supplementary motor areas (p<0.001). The disjunction analysis indicated that the RR bodyscan was associated with stronger functional connectivity of the right inferior frontal gyrus – an important hub of intentional inhibition and control-with supplementary motor areas (p<0.001, FWE corrected). The MBSR program was uniquely associated with improvements in self-compassion and rumination and the within group analysis of MBSR bodyscan revealed significant functional connectivity of the right anterior insula – an important hub of sensory awareness and salience-with pregenual anterior cingulate during bodyscan meditation compared to rest (p=0.03, FWE corrected). Conclusions The bodyscan exercises in each program were associated with both overlapping and differential functional coupling patterns, which were consistent with each program’s theoretical foundation. These results may have implications for the differential effects of these programs for the treatment of diverse conditions.