SCIENCE

Charity in the Brain

Charitable Donations Mimic Joy

“Humans often sacrifice material benefits to endorse or to oppose societal causes based on moral beliefs,” is the first line in a 2006 study titled “Human fronto–mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation” led by Dr. Jorge Moll, M.D. from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Ph.D. from São Paulo University in experimental pathology, and founder of the D’Or Institute of Research and Education (IDOR) in Brazil (2). In this study, Moll and associates set out to uncover the neuroscientific reasons and effects of charitable donations. The images we reference in this explanation can be found on slide 2 in the Prezi above.

Before engaging in a deeper explanation of the significance of the figures presented by Dr. Moll’s study, the first step is an understanding of the experimental conditions employed by the study. The participants anonymously decided to donate or refrain from donating to real charitable organizations with a wide range of societal causes. The experiment aimed to explore the relationship between material interests and altruistic preferences. To do this, each participant began with a stipend that would be payed to them in full if they chose to refrain from donating. If the participant chose to donate as the experiment went on, their personal stipend would decrease.

The figures in the Prezi show the results of the experiment’s conditions based on the participants’ responses and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) results to understand spatial activation of brain areas during the questioning portion of the experiment. The results showed activation of two brain regions: the midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA) (figure panel a), including both the dorsal and ventral (STR), and the subgenual area (SG) (figure panel b). The activation of both the of brain regions that compose the brain’s mesolimbic pathway and are associated with figure panel (a) occurred in all three conditions. The pathway is known for its use of dopamine to promote feelings of elation associated with reward and addiction. The activation of this system is also associated with food and sex, as a reference. Figure panel (b) shows SG becomes activated, while figure panel (c) shows that the donations are the main contributors to its activation. The measure for (c) is based on blood-oxygenation levels that are used to track the amount of energy usage by the brain regions in the fMRI. Physiologically, the SG controls the release of oxytocin and vasopressin by the hypothalamus that plays a role in social attachment. Specifically, oxytocin is found to increase trust and cooperation between individuals. Lastly, figure panel (d) shows a positive correlation between the percentage of time participants donated and the parameters of the STR area. Since the STR area composes a portion of the mesolimbic reward pathway, this finding corroborates that mesolimbic reward reinforces compassionate behavior.

Compassion and Connection

Compassion Increases Social Connectedness

The sociological understanding of compassion relates to social connectedness. Social connectedness is a value for how different individuals or groups interact. The elements that increase and decrease when social connectedness is strong can be found on slide 4 of the Prezi above. In “The Compassionate Mind” written by Emma Seppala, the associate director of The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford Medical School at the time of publication, Seppala claims, “Compassion may have ensured our survival because of its tremendous benefits for both physical and mental health and overall well-being” (3). Compassionate acts increase the value of social connectedness by promoting trust, cooperation, and empathy- also proved in Dr. Moll’s neuroscientific study (2). The effects of increasing social connectedness are an improvement in mental and physical health. Specifically, anxiety and depression have been found to be associated with poor social connectedness. Therefore, compassion should alleviate some symptoms or severity of anxiety and depression, since it makes individuals experience an increase in social connectedness. It is important to note that compassion is not a cure for these mental health conditions as they originate and are affected by many different factors. Seppala states, “Social connectedness, therefore, generates a positive feedback loop of social, emotional, and physical well-being” (3).

Compassion Alters the Immune System

Evidence for Seppala’s conclusions about the effect social connectedness has on physical health, as explained above, can be found in Dr. Steve Cole’s 2007 study called “Social regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes” (4). Dr. Cole, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in the UCLA School of Medicine, examined the genetic alteration of transcriptional activity (genes that make proteins to exhibit a function) in people that consider themselves of a high lonely value (or have a low social connectedness value) versus people that have a low lonely value (or have a high social connectedness value). This explanation refers to the figure on slide 5 of the Prezi.

The study’s results that are diagrammed synthesize the comparison of 209 genes associated with leukocytes (immune system cells) between the bottom 15% of isolated individuals versus the top 15% of integrated individuals. On the top portion of the figure, the green represents over-expression (up-regulation) of a gene; red represents under-expression (down-regulation) of a gene. The intensity of the color describes the degree of which a gene was up-regulated or down-regulated. Based on the understanding of these measures, there is a noticeable difference between the “isolated” versus “integrated” individuals. In fact, the portion of the individuals’ genes diagrammed differ by more than 30 percent. For the isolated individuals, most of the change is toward down-regulation. On the bottom of the figure, the bar graph shows the difference of an isolated individual’s genes as 131 of the genes are down-regulated and only 78 genes are up-regulated. The genes that were up-regulated in isolated models were associated with cell growth and differentiation in inflammatory inducing cells. The danger with the increased inflammation is related to many different known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. As for the down-regulated genes, they caused a repression of cell-cycle inhibitors and apoptosis that led to an excess of cells in circulation. The down-regulated genes also stopped B lymphocytes from differentiation. The lack of differentiation meant that these subsets of immune cells only functioned in a general capacity and cannot respond as well to specific bacterial or viral infections.

Overall, this study shows that compassion, because of its effect on social connectedness, can help combat these gene changes that lead to overactive immune systems. Compassion also reduces loneliness; thus, compassion decreases negative alterations to an individual’s genome.

Compassion is Instinctive

“Cooperation is central to human social behavior” proclaims a psychological 2012 study led by Dr. David G. Rand, Ph.D. in Systems Biology from Harvard University and currently an Associate Professor of Psychology, Economics, Cognitive Science and Management at Yale University (5). In the study, Rand’s findings indicate that giving and cooperation is instinctual. The experimental procedure used in the study was based on charitable donations that frame giving in terms of compassion. Rand’s study used 10 economic games and timed subjects to investigate whether individuals are predisposed to selfish behavior. The results say that subjects who reached their decisions more quickly were more cooperative. Over 65 percent of participants made contributions if they answered within ten seconds, whereas less than 55 percent of participants made contributions if they answered after ten seconds. Under time pressure there was a greater amount of contributions than the inverse of people constrained to a time delayed response. “Our results provide convergent evidence that intuition supports cooperation in social dilemmas, and that reflection can undermine these cooperative impulses” (5).

Compassion Fatigue

While there are many positive effects of being compassionate, recently, a popular topic of study in psychology is compassion fatigue. The introduction of this idea has barely emerged in the last couple of years, and as such, it is still being defined. The best definition that could be found by comparing several peer-reviewed journals is synthesized as follows: in a repetitively stressful position that merits the need of compassion and empathy, an individual experiences adverse mental and physical effects that lead to a reduced capacity for compassion and empathy. Secondary traumatic stress and burnout are the two most damaging mental conditions that affect those who experience compassion fatigue. The former results in symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); the latter refers to complete physical or mental exhaustion that can lead to collapse. In addition to these symptoms, there have been reports of insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, depression, and headaches. As is defined, compassion fatigue follows individuals beyond the job. The jobs associated with compassion fatigue also experience lower satisfactory ratings, increased turnover, decreased productivity, and increased absenteeism. Jobs that have thus far tested positive for compassion fatigue are nurses, clergy, and therapists. The final negative effect is a loss of self-care that was associated with destructive behavior leading to self-harming events, like substance abuse. If this is the case, then how can compassion ultimately be good for everyone?

The truth is: acts of compassion are not the source of compassion fatigue.

Upon further research of compassion fatigue, a recent peer-reviewed paper examined and found that it was the way people respond to compassion fatigue that causes the most danger to an individual. Some figures from the study can be found on slide 8 of the Prezi. The study titled “Compassion fatigue and substance use among nurses” was published in 2017 and led by Reem Jarard of the Clinical Nursing Department in the School of Nursing at The University of Jordan Amman. (6). The study included a wide range of nurses that have a tendency to experience compassion fatigue. To rate compassion fatigue, the research team gave all the participants a 66-question survey that totaled a score when tallied. The scores ranged from 0 to over 421. The two important milestones are scores of 36-40 that translate to high risk for compassion fatigue and 41+ that translate to extremely high risk for compassion fatigue. Remaining score values range from extremely low risk to moderate risk for compassion fatigue. After the acquisition of these values, the experimenters found the number of nurses that abuse substances including cigarette smoking, sleeping pills, anti-depressant drugs, coffee, and alcohol. The response percentages may be found in the left picture of the slide. In the figure on the right, the study compared compassion fatigue values of substance abusers versus non-substance abusers. Based on the results, substance abuse led to much higher compassion fatigue risk.

Although this finding does not disprove compassion’s role in compassion fatigue, the study does show that it is an individual’s response to compassion fatigue that can impact the risk level of compassion fatigue. As a result, the best course of action is not to stop compassionate acts--since there is evidence of compassion’s physical and mental benefits--but to improve how individuals cope with stressful situations. There should be an implementation of therapists and other healthy habit strategies to help reduce compassion fatigue amongst employees in high stress and compassion-demanding jobs. For example, a recent paper discussed that when clergy underwent a 10-week clinical pastoral education (CPE) program, they were less likely to experience compassion fatigue (7). Programs like the CPE include crisis intervention and disaster-relief training to their participants to better their coping mechanisms. Overall, compassion fatigue is not a problem with compassion, but a problem with an inability to properly cope with stress.