Meditation thickens brains

“Gyrification” could be many things. It could be what happens to ducks who get caught in a tornado. It might be a description of the verbal twisting that politicians engage in when they have been caught in a lie or contradiction. It potentially could be an instruction given to any background dancer in a Madonna film clip. It is however, none of these (probably) but is something that happens in your brain and meditation can enhance gyrification and that is a good thing.

The cerebral cortex is the outermost layer of nerve tissue in your brain. It plays a vital role in memory, attention, thought, and consciousness itself. Gyrification is folding that takes place within the cerebral cortex. Through this folding your brain creates narrow furrows and folds called sulci and gyri. The more folding that occurs the thicker the brain appears and the better it is at processing information, making decisions, and forming memories.

In the new study researchers took MRI scans of the brains of men and women who were regular meditators and compared them to scans of people who never meditated. The meditators had been meditating for an average of twenty years using a range of techniques including Samatha, Vipassana, and Zen.

The scans showed increased gyrification in many areas of the cortex including the precentral gyrus, left and right anterior dorsal insula, right fusiform gyrus, and the right cuneus. The insula functions as a hub for cognitive integration so the increased folding in that region reflects the purpose of meditation to develop self-awareness and self-regulation.

Given the huge amount of research into meditation the difference between the brains of meditators and non-meditators was not really surprising. What was interesting though is that there was a direct relationship between the number of years spent meditating and the amount of brain gyrification. The more years meditating, the more the gyrification.

So if you are meditator the next time that someone calls you a “thick-head” you can simply respond, “Thankyou”.