Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have documented the first study to show how meditation produces long-term structural changes and growth in the brain. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the scientists discovered increases in the 16 participants’ grey matter density after only 8-weeks of meditating about 30 minutes per day. Gray matter contains the highest concentration of neuronal cell bodies and has been found to be more abundant in the brains of artists. Most notably, the changes were recorded in the hippocampus, a brain region central to learning and new memory that degenerates during Alzheimer’s and other diseases. Read more about the study in the Harvard Gazette.