Maintaining Gray Matter is Black and White
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Posted on Feb 29, 2016, 6 a.m.
Brain imaging study clearly confirms the “age-defying effects” of long-term meditation.
Previously, a team from the University of California/Los Angeles (UCLA; California, USA) reported that people who meditate have less age-related atrophy in the brain's white matter. Eileen Luders and colleagues expand on their work, finding that meditation may also help to preserve the brain's gray matter – the tissue that contains neurons. Comparing 50 people who had mediated for years and 50 who didn't, the researchers found that among those who meditated (practiced for 20 years on-average), the decline in the volume of gray matter was not as expansive, as compared to those who did not meditate. The study authors submit that: “these findings seem to suggest less age-related gray matter atrophy in long-term meditation practitioners.”
Luders E, Cherbuin N, Kurth F. “Forever Young(er): potential age-defying effects of long-term meditation on gray matter atrophy.” Front Psychol. 2015 Jan 21;5:1551.