Meditation strengthens the brain

UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles) has suggested for years that Meditation thickens the brain and strengthens the connections between brain cells.

Now, a new report from UCLA researchers suggests yet another benefit of meditation on the brain. The article appears in the digital edition of the magazine Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Researchers have found that, in the long term, meditators have a greater amount of girification (curves of the cerebral cortex), this allows the brain to process information more quickly.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of girification and the number of years of meditation. This is one more proof of brain neuroplasticity and the ability to adapt to environmental changes.

The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of nervous tissue. Among other functions, it plays a key role in memory, attention, thinking and consciousness. Gyrification (the folds of the cerebral cortex) is the process by which the surface of the brain undergoes changes to create narrow grooves and improve neural processing. Therefore, the more folds there are, the better the information processing, decision making, memory formation and so on.

This finding adds to many other benefits that the practice of meditation brings. If you want to know more, I recommend this article: 9 positive effects of meditation.