“Sanskrit Effect” Enhanced Cognitive Function
Incredible Ancient India (Bharat) : “Sanskrit effect” (by James Hartzell is a postdoctoral researcher) - 1. India's Vedic Sanskrit pandits train for years to orally memorize and exactly recite 3,000-year old oral texts ranging from 40,000 to over 100,000 words. We wanted to find out how such intense verbal memory training affects the physical structure of their brains. 2. What we discovered from the structural MRI scanning was remarkable. Numerous regions in the brains of the pandits were dramatically larger than those of controls, with over 10 percent more grey matter across both cerebral hemispheres, and substantial increases in cortical thickness. Although the exact cellular underpinnings of gray matter and cortical thickness measures are still under investigation, increases in these metrics consistently correlate with enhanced cognitive function. https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/observations/a-neuroscientist-explores-the-sanskrit-effect/