Metta Meditation Training on Prosocial Behavior

June 15, 2021 updated by: Georgetown University

Identifying Neural Correlates of Altruism

The purpose of the study is to look at the impact of a metta meditation training on prosocial behavior and socio-affective brain responses. The training involves an 8-week, online administration of guided metta meditation practices aimed at generating feelings of kindness and compassion for other people. The study examines how participants respond to thinking about familiar others and strangers using behavioral and brain-imaging measures. This study will be important for understanding how people develop the capacity to be prosocial towards other individuals, which is a key component of adaptive social behavior.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

67

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • District of Columbia
      • Washington, District of Columbia, United States, 20007
        • Georgetown University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 55 years (Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Is a medically healthy individual
  • Lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area and is able to travel to Georgetown University

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Has experience with meditation
  • Has any MRI contraindication (e.g. metal in the body, cardiac pacemaker, cannot lie still, etc.)
  • Has any neurological disease
  • Has a current psychiatric disorder
  • Is pregnant or planning to become pregnant
  • Is on medication that affects the central nervous system (e.g. psychotropic drugs)

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Metta meditation
Eight-week, guided metta meditation training that is administered online
Behavioral: Metta meditation
Administered 5 days per week for 8 weeks.
Other Names:
  • Loving-kindness meditation
No Intervention: Wait-list
Eight-week wait-list control with no training

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Social Discounting
Time Frame: 8 weeks
During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning, participants will complete a social discounting task. Participants will choose whether to forgo various amounts of money to give to another person. Behavioral and brain responses will be analyzed to assess social discounting in each participant.
8 weeks
Affective Brain Responses to Familiar and Unfamiliar Others
Time Frame: 8 weeks
During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning, participants will view images of people who they know and people who they do not know. Affective brain response patterns will be analyzed to assess responding in each participant.
8 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
State Affect Rating
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Participants will complete the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) questionnaire. This self-report scale includes 20 items that are rated on a 5-point scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). Positive and negative self-reported affect will be quantified for each participant.
8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Georgetown University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 25, 2018

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 14, 2021

Study Completion (Actual)

May 14, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 27, 2019

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 27, 2019

First Posted (Actual)

March 29, 2019

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 16, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 15, 2021

Last Verified

July 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2010-180
  • BCS-1729406 (Other Grant/Funding Number: NSF)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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