Brain Training, Neurogenesis, & Meditation

Brain Training and Meditation

brain training online meditation

Brain Training And Meditation

So often different medical, scientific and philosophical disciplines travel on parallel paths, unaware or only dimly aware of one another’s existence. This applies to many spheres, not just brain training, neuroscience, medicine, and psychology. But when these parallel paths bend slightly and converge, exciting progress often results.

Scientists from the Harvard Medical School, the Massachusetts Medical School, and the Bender Institute of Neuroimaging recently bent their paths to study the impact of mindfulness (regular meditation) on the brain. And here at MindSparke we find our own path of brain training research bending to meet them.

The research team set out to investigate what if anything was changing in the brain as a result of mindfulness practice. Specifically, they used neuroimaging to look for “pre–post changes in brain gray matter concentration” of sixteen healthy, meditation-naïve participants who took part in the two month program. The team looked for changes in gray matter concentration compared with a control group of 17 individuals. They found increases in gray matter concentration in the left hippocampus — the posterior cingulate cortex, the temporo-parietal junction, and the cerebellum in the MBSR group compared with the controls. In other words, brain regions involved in learning and memory processes, emotion regulation, self-referential processing, and perspective taking.

Brain Training Online with Brain Fitness Pro SE – Meditation Included!

From a brain training perspective this is phenomenal. At MindSparke we’ve been investigating the brain training benefits of meditation before training with Brain Fitness Pro. We’ve found that just a brief (eight minute or so) period of mindful meditation before brain training with Brain Fitness Pro’s working memory exercises increases the effectiveness of the dual n-back training by as much as 20%. Several months ago we incorporated guided meditation into the MindSparke Brain Fitness Pro SE (Special Edition) online brain training program.

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