Is Meditation the Push-Up for the Brain? Study Shows Practice May Have Potential to Change Brain's Physical Structure

“Two years ago, researchers at UCLA found that specific regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger and had more gray matter than the brains of individuals in a control group. This suggested that meditation may indeed be good for all of us since, alas, our brains shrink naturally with age.

Now, a follow-up study suggests that people who meditate also have stronger connections between brain regions and show less age-related brain atrophy. Having stronger connections influences the ability to rapidly relay electrical signals in the brain. And significantly, these effects are evident throughout the entire brain, not just in specific areas.”

Original: Enhanced brain connectivity in long-term meditation practitioners

Abstract: Very little is currently known about the cerebral characteristics that underlie the complex processes of meditation as only a limited number of studies have addressed this topic. Research exploring structural connectivity in meditation practitioners is particularly rare. We thus acquired diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data of high angular and spatial resolution and used atlas-based tract mapping methods to investigate white matter fiber characteristics in a well-matched sample of long-term meditators and controls (n = 54). A broad field mapping approach estimated the fractional anisotropy (FA) for twenty different fiber tracts (i.e., nine tracts in each hemisphere and two inter-hemispheric tracts) that were subsequently used as dependent measures. Results showed pronounced structural connectivity in meditators compared to controls throughout the entire brain within major projection pathways, commissural pathways, and association pathways. The largest group differences were observed within the corticospinal tract, the temporal component of the superior longitudinal fasciculus, and the uncinate fasciculus. While cross-sectional studies represent a good starting point for elucidating possible links between meditation and white matter fiber characteristics, longitudinal studies will be necessary to determine the relative contribution of nature and nurture to enhanced structural connectivity in long-term meditators.

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Edit: Previously:

Brain meditative exercise helps cognition

Psychological changes from meditation linked to cellular health

Mindfulness meditation training changes brain structure in 8 weeks

MRI scanning the brains of meditating monks

Brain Imaging Illustrates How Meditation Reduces Pain

I wonder how much the good postural and respiratory habits it helps develop play a role in this. I was just reading about the effects of hyperventilation. This picture of oxygen levels in the brain is actually a bit worrying considering how bad my breathing is. Gonna get on the Buteyko I think.

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It's definitely interesting and I'd just like to comment that meditation is far from unique in producing these kinds of effects; professional musicians, go players, etc. have been found to have brains that are, arguably, more wellpreserved(/developed) [note: everything's relative in cognitive sciences and it's hard to say anything absolute about what is a good brain except when it comes to brain decay, which we can hopefully agree is objectively 'bad'] than the average person. I think meditation is generally great and can be a very fulfilling activity for people, but I really think there is a tendency in the medical/therapeutic community to raise it too high and forget its benefits' similarities to the ones of other highly engaging activities. I feel that to a certain extent much of the research on meditation is really a more limited exploration of the field related to benefits of flow-producing activities that Csikszentmihalyi spearheaded in the 90's.