How God Changes Your Brain - Andrew Newberg, M. D_ [15]
Gus's scans showed that it takes less than two months to alter the overall neural functioning of the brain. This is amazing because it demonstrates that we have the power to consciously change our brains, and improve our neural functioning, in far less time than scientists used to think. As noted in Chapter 1, we can see permanent changes in single neurons in a matter of days, and as other studies have shown, most forms of meditation will create subtle but significant changes in a couple of months. Will they be permanent? It's too early to tell concerning cognitive enhancement, but we know from our own studies that advanced meditators who have practiced for years show substantial differences in their brain when compared to nonmeditators. These differences can even be seen when the person is not meditating, but again, we don't know if the brain would return to “normal” if the meditation practice were given up. It's probably similar to exercise: the more the better, but if you stop doing it, the benefits will fade away.
As we mentioned earlier, we found significant increases in the pre-frontal cortex and the anterior cingulate, areas essential for keeping one's attention focused on a task. Other types of meditation and yoga practice stimulate these same areas, but with our memory patients, we also found a significant increase in the cerebellum, which plays an important role in integrating conscious movements of the body. This makes sense since the hand movements of the meditation would necessarily involve the motor coordination areas in the brain.
Gus also showed increased activity in his basal ganglia, lying deep within the center of the brain. The basal ganglia helps control voluntary movements, posture, and motor sequencing, but it also plays an important role in memory formation, behavioral control, and cognitive flexibility.22 Abnormal functioning in this area is associated with normal aging23 and movement disorders24 like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Tourette's, and Huntington's disease.25 This suggests to us that movement-based meditations, more so than passive meditations, should strengthen the neural functioning of those parts of the brain susceptible to many age-related diseases. However, other forms of meditation, such as Zen, also improve cognition by strengthening different circuits of the brain that normally decline with age.26
TESTING GUS'S COGNITIVE SKILLS
After we took the second set of scans, we readministered our cognitive measurement tests to see if his memory had improved. We were astonished. On one of the tests, he showed almost a 50 percent improvement. Known as the Trails Test,27 it's like an advanced connect-the-dots game. The test has been used for decades to assess a wide range of cognitive functions because it requires visual scanning, visual-motor coordination, and visual-spatial ability. Before the meditation practice, Gus took 107 seconds to complete the task. After following the Kirtan Kriya program, he completed the task in 68 seconds.
Some of our other subjects showed less improvement, but all of them showed enhanced abilities in memory recall, concentration, and verbal fluency. The overall improvement averaged between 10 and 20 percent. This is very impressive, because eight weeks, as we mentioned, is a very short time to measure these kinds of changes. Since we plan to follow our patients over a period of several years, we expect to see continuing improvement in a variety of cognitive skills. However, as other cognitive studies have shown, you need to exercise your brain daily to maintain the benefits achieved.28
MEDITATION WITHOUT GOD
This was our first real evidence that a meditation practice, even when removed from