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Meditation strengthens and enlarges an area of the brain that help us process and respond to thoughts and emotions

Meditation strengthens the brain, raises consciousness

Natural Health News — Building on earlier work showing that meditating for years thickens the brain (in a good way!) and strengthens the connections between brain cells, researchers have found yet another benefit.

Scientists at the University of California Los Angeles Laboratory of Neuro Imaging 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.

Improving consciousness

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.

Say scientists, 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 lead researcher Eileen Luders. “That is, correlating the number of years of meditation with the degree of folding.”

Peering into the brain

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 meditators had practised on average for 20 years using a variety of meditation types – Samatha, Vipassana, Zen and more.

The researchers found pronounced group differences (heightened levels of gyrification in active meditation practitioners) across a wide section of the cortex. Perhaps most interesting, though, was the positive correlation between the number of meditation years and the amount of insular gyrification.

The insula is thought to function as a hub for “autonomic, affective and cognitive integration” in other words how we perceive, process and react to stimuli.

“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” said Lulders.