Meditation builds up the brain

Alison Motluk at New Scientist has a story on how meditation may affect or improve the brain. The study used a test called “psychomotor vigilance task” which involved a volunteer to press a button when the image shows up on the LCD screen. Bruce O’Hara at the University of Kentucky in Lexington found out this interesting result:

… Ten volunteers were tested before and after 40 minutes of either sleep, meditation, reading or light conversation, with all subjects trying all conditions. The 40-minute nap was known to improve performance (after an hour or so to recover from grogginess). But what astonished the researchers was that meditation was the only intervention that immediately led to superior performance, despite none of the volunteers being experienced at meditation…

It says every single subject shows improvements, but meditation shows the higher performance than other method. Interesting.

Meditation builds up the brain – [New Scientist]