FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING OF EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY AND WISDOM ASSESSMENT OF MEDITATORS AND NON-MEDITATORS By MARC F. KURTZMAN A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2005 Copyright 2005 by Marc F. Kurzman To my parents: thank you for continuing to believe in me ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my family, mentors, and colleagues for their continued support. I thank my mentors, Dr. Shaya Isenberg, Dr. Lou Ritz, and Dr. Gene Thursby, for their support and encouragement on such an ambitious project. I thank the University of Florida Center for Spirituality and Health for the support and vision of interdisciplinary research. I thank the many people who made this work possible: Shaya Isenberg, Ph.D., Lou Ritz Ph.D., Gene Thursby Ph.D., Monika Ardelt Ph.D., Keith White Ph.D., Tim Conway Ph.D., Bruce Crosson Ph.D., Keith McGregor B.S., and Katie MacElhannon B.S. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv LIST OF TABLES............................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 An Integralist Approach ...............................................................................................1 Meditation: A Definition ..............................................................................................5 Previous Research in Meditation..................................................................................6 Wisdom.........................................................................................................................9 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ..................................................................11 Neuroimaging Emotion ..............................................................................................12 Hypothesis ..................................................................................................................16 Wisdom................................................................................................................16 Functional Imaging..............................................................................................16 2: METHODS ....................................................................................................................18 Materials and Methods for Wisdom Assessment .......................................................18 Participants ..........................................................................................................18 Survey Instruments..............................................................................................19 Analysis ...............................................................................................................21 Materials and Methods for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.......................22 Participants ..........................................................................................................22 Experimental Stimuli...........................................................................................22 Experimental Design ...........................................................................................22 Image Acquisition ...............................................................................................23 Image Analysis ....................................................................................................24 3: RESULTS ......................................................................................................................27 Wisdom Surveys.........................................................................................................27 Meditators versus Non-Meditators......................................................................27 v Group Based Meditators versus Non-group Based Meditators and Non- Meditators ...............................................................................................................29 Threshold Meditators..............................................................................................30 Functional Imaging Results ...............................................................................................32 All Affect Based Deconvolution T-Tests............................................................32 All Affect Based Deconvolution Descriptive Analysis.......................................32 Affect Based Deconvolution ...............................................................................36 4: DISCUSSION................................................................................................................40 Wisdom Surveys.........................................................................................................40 Functional Imaging.....................................................................................................43 Future Research ..........................................................................................................44 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................44 REFERENCE LIST ...........................................................................................................46 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .............................................................................................51 vi LIST OF TABLES Table page 1: Group statistics of meditators and non-meditators in the various portions of the survey. ......................................................................................................................28 2: Group statistics of group based meditators and non-meditators/non-group based meditators in the various portions of the survey. .....................................................30 3: Group statistics of threshold meditators and non-meditators/non-threshold meditators in the various portions of the survey. .....................................................31 4: Individual subject data of volume of left and right frontal activity (µl).......................34 5: Individual subject data of volume of left and right limbic activity (µl). .......................35 6: Individual subject data of volume of left and right activity (µl)....................................37 7: Individual subject data of volume of left and right frontal activity (µl)........................38 8: Individual subject data of volume of left and right occipital activity (µl) ...................39 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 1. Four quadrant map of Ken Wilber’s Integral theory (Wilber, 2000b, p. 1)...................3 2: Medial view of brain with limbic lobe and prefrontal limbic cortex (Iverson et al, 2000, p. 987).............................................................................................................13 3: Limbic system showing interconnectedness of the structures and arrows indicating the predominant direction of neural activity (Iverson et al, 2000, p. 987)...............13 4: The schematic above is an example of a single run. The total run length was 200.6 sec.............................................................................................................................23 5: Above is an example of an affective stimulus block (positive) consisting of five interchanging pictures from the International Affective Picture System shown for a duration of 3.4 sec. and with white blank images shown between for 1.7 sec. for a total block time of 27.2 seconds. ..............................................................23 6: Aggregated data of meditators and non-meditators depicting hemispheric activity according to volume size. The red and blue pie charts above the aggregated non-meditators give the breakdown of each individual non-meditator subject. The blue and yellow pie charts above the aggregated meditator data is the breakdown of each individual meditator subject......................................................33 7: Aggregated data of meditators and non-meditators depicting frontal lobe hemispheric activity according to volume size. .......................................................34 8: Aggregated data of meditators and non-meditators depicting limbic system hemispheric activity according to volume size. .......................................................35 9: Aggregated data of meditators and non-meditators depicting hemispheric activity according to volume size during presentation of negative affective stimuli............37 10: Aggregated data of meditators and non-meditators depicting frontal lobe hemispheric activity according to volume size during presentation of negative affective stimuli........................................................................................................38 11: Aggregated data of meditators and non-meditators depicting occipital lobe hemispheric activity according to volume size during presentation of negative affective stimuli........................................................................................................39 viii Abstract of thesis Presented to