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Evidence builds that meditation strengthens the brain, researchers say

March 14th, 2012 in Neuroscience

*Earlier evidence out of UCLA suggested that meditating for years
thickens the brain (in a good way) and strengthens the connections
between brain cells. Now a further report by UCLA researchers suggests
yet another benefit.*

Eileen Luders, an assistant professor at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro
Imaging, and colleagues, have found that long-term meditators have
larger amounts of gyrification ("folding" of the cortex, which may
allow the brain to process information faster) than people who do not
meditate. Further, a direct correlation was found between the amount
of gyrification and the number of meditation years, possibly providing
further proof of the brain's neuroplasticity, or ability to adapt to
environmental changes.

The article appears in the online edition of the journal /Frontiers in
Human Neuroscience/.

The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of neural tissue. Among
other functions, it plays a key role in memory, attention, thought and
consciousness. Gyrification or cortical folding is the process by
which the surface of the brain undergoes changes to create narrow
furrows and folds called sulci and gyri. Their formation may promote
and enhance neural processing. Presumably then, the more folding that
occurs, the better the brain is at processing information, making
decisions, forming memories and so forth.

"Rather than just comparing meditators and non-meditators, we wanted
to see if there is a link between the amount of meditation practice
and the extent of brain alteration," said Luders. "That is,
correlating the number of years of meditation with the degree of folding."

The researchers took MRI scans of 50 meditators, 28 men and 22 women,
and compared them to 50 control subjects matched for age, handedness
and sex. The scans for the controls were obtained from an existing MRI
database, while the meditators were recruited from various meditation
venues. The meditators had practiced their craft on average for 20
years using a variety of meditation types — Samatha, Vipassana, Zen
and more. The researchers applied a well-established and automated
whole-brain approach to measure cortical gyrification at thousands of
points across the surface of the brain.

They found pronounced group differences (heightened levels of
gyrification in active meditation practitioners) across a wide swatch
of the cortex, including the left precentral gyrus, the left and right
anterior dorsal insula, the right fusiform gyrus and the right cuneus.

Perhaps most interesting, though, was the positive correlation between
the number of meditation years and the amount of insular gyrification.

"The insula has been suggested to function as a hub for autonomic,
affective and cognitive integration," said Luders. "Meditators are
known to be masters in introspection and awareness as well as
emotional control and self-regulation, so the findings make sense that
the longer someone has meditated, the higher the degree of folding in
the insula."

While Luders cautions that genetic and other environmental factors
could have contributed to the effects the researchers observed, still,
"The positive correlation between gyrification and the number of
practice years supports the idea that meditation enhances regional
gyrification."

Provided by University of California - Los Angeles

"Evidence builds that meditation strengthens the brain, researchers
say." March 14th, 2012.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-evidence-meditation-brain.html