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Meditate For A Bigger Brain
May 12, 2009 by Ray Baskerville
A group of researchers at UCLA using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate have found that meditation builds a bigger brain. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage and currently available online (by subscription), the researchers show that certain areas in the brains of long-term meditators were larger than in a similar control group.
Specifically, meditators showed significantly larger size oat the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus — all regions known for regulating emotions.
"We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior," said Eileen Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why meditators have these exceptional abilities."
Research has confirmed the benefits of meditation. As well as having better focus and control over their emotions, many who meditate regularly have distinctly lower levels of stress and stronger immune systems. Research on the link between meditation and brain structure is a newer field of discovery.
The study consisted of 44 people — 22 control subjects and 22 who had practiced various forms of meditation, including Zazen, Samatha and Vipassana, among others. The amount of time they had practiced ranged from five to 46 years, with an average of 24 years.
Over fifty percent of the meditators said that deep concentration was an integral part of their practice, and most meditated between 10 and 90 minutes every day.
Two different approaches were used to measure differences in brain structure. One automatically divides the brain into several regions of interest, allowing researchers to compare the size of certain brain structures. The other divides the brain into different tissue types, allowing researchers to compare the amount of actual tissue within specific regions of the brain.
They found significantly larger cerebral measurements in meditators compared with controls. There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators.
Because these areas of the brain are closely linked to emotion, a researcher said, "these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’ the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way."
What’s not known, she said, and will require further study, are what the specific correlates are on a microscopic level — that is, whether it’s an increased number of neurons, the larger size of the neurons or a particular "wiring" pattern meditators may develop that other people don’t.
Because this was not a longitudinal study — which would have tracked meditators from the time they began meditating onward — it’s possible that the meditators already had more regional gray matter and volume in specific areas; that may have attracted them to meditation in the first place, Luders said.
However, she also noted that numerous previous studies have pointed to the brain’s remarkable plasticity and how environmental enrichment has been shown to change brain structure.
Adapted from material on http://www.ucla.edu/
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A group of researchers at UCLA using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate have found that meditation builds a bigger brain….
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