Members of Falun Gong spiritual movement meditate at the Lafayette Park. A new study has suggested that spiritual activity such as meditation may hep prevent depression by thickening the brain cortex
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AFP/Getty Images
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Spiritual or religious activity may protect against depression by thickening brain cortex
Those who place a high level of importance on spirituality and religion were found to have thicker cortices in the areas normally associated with thinning in people at risk, than those who did not
Meditation and other such spiritual or religious practices may help prevent depression by prompting a thickening of the brain cortex, researchers have said.
Mindfulness based therapy has long been recommended to those who suffer from depression and a recent study by the same team found that spirituality can protect against the illness, particularly in those who are predisposed.
Following up on the previous findings, the researchers, led by Lisa Miller, professor and director of Clinical Psychology and director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University, think they may have discovered why.
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The new study found that those who placed a high importance in religion or spirituality had thicker cortices than those who did not.
For those with a family history of mental illness, the results were even more striking - a thicker cortex was found in precisely the same regions of the brain that has otherwise shown thinning in people at high risk of developing depression.
The paper did however caution that “these findings are correlational and therefore do not prove a causal association between importance and cortical thickness”.
Professor Miller said: “The new study links this extremely large protective benefit of spirituality or religion to previous studies which identified large expanses of cortical thinning in specific regions of the brain in adult offspring of families at high risk for major depression.”
The research involved 103 adults, at either high or low risk of depression based on family history, who were asked about how much importance they placed on religion or spirituality. Cortical thickness was then measured through brain MRI scans.
In pictures: The top science news of 2013
Show all 10
In pictures: The top science news of 2013
1/10 A meteorite trail is seen above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013. A heavy meteor shower rained down today on central Russia, sowing panic as the hurtling space debris smashed windows and injured dozens of stunned locals, officials said
Getty Images
Getty Images
2/10 Astronaut Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 Flight Engineer, is shown in this handout photo provided by NASA as he participates in the second of two spacewalks which took place on Christmas eve 2013
Reuters
Reuters
3/10 An archaeologist digs out skeletons from the site of the graveyard of the Bethlehem, or Bedlam, hospital next to Liverpool Street Station in the City of London in August 2013
Reuters
Reuters
4/10 An olinguito, a new species of Carnivore which was newly discovered in 2013. The olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina) had been mistakenly identified for more than 100 years and is also the first carnivore species to be discovered in the American continents in 35 years.
Getty Images
Getty Images
5/10 Richard III Society member Philippa Langley stands besides a facial reconstruction of King Richard III before it is unveiled by the Richard III Society in February2013
Getty Images
Getty Images
6/10 NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory launches aboard the Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in September 2013. One launch image was photobombed by a frog who was trying to hop away at the time
Getty Images
Getty Images
7/10 A shot from the world's smallest film created by manipulating atoms produced by IBM in May 2013
IBM
8/10 Nobel laureate Professor Peter Higgs at the Science Museum, London, ahead of the opening of the the museum's new "Collider" exhibition in 2013, which gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Cern particle physics laboratory in Geneva
PA
PA
9/10 British astronaut Major Tim Peake next to a spacesuit at the Science Museum in London back in May 2013. He will be joining the International Space Station (ISS) in late 2015.
Getty Images
Getty Images
10/10 The KSLV-1 (Naro) rocket lifts off from the launch pad at Goheung Space Center in Januar in Goheung-gun, South Korea, 2013. The rocket was originally scheduled to launch in November 2012 following two previous unsuccessful attempts in 2009 and 2010
Getty Images
Getty Images
1/10 A meteorite trail is seen above a residential apartment block in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013. A heavy meteor shower rained down today on central Russia, sowing panic as the hurtling space debris smashed windows and injured dozens of stunned locals, officials said
Getty Images
Getty Images
2/10 Astronaut Mike Hopkins, Expedition 38 Flight Engineer, is shown in this handout photo provided by NASA as he participates in the second of two spacewalks which took place on Christmas eve 2013
Reuters
Reuters
3/10 An archaeologist digs out skeletons from the site of the graveyard of the Bethlehem, or Bedlam, hospital next to Liverpool Street Station in the City of London in August 2013
Reuters
Reuters
4/10 An olinguito, a new species of Carnivore which was newly discovered in 2013. The olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina) had been mistakenly identified for more than 100 years and is also the first carnivore species to be discovered in the American continents in 35 years.
Getty Images
Getty Images
5/10 Richard III Society member Philippa Langley stands besides a facial reconstruction of King Richard III before it is unveiled by the Richard III Society in February2013
Getty Images
Getty Images
6/10 NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory launches aboard the Minotaur V rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in September 2013. One launch image was photobombed by a frog who was trying to hop away at the time
Getty Images
Getty Images
7/10 A shot from the world's smallest film created by manipulating atoms produced by IBM in May 2013
IBM
8/10 Nobel laureate Professor Peter Higgs at the Science Museum, London, ahead of the opening of the the museum's new "Collider" exhibition in 2013, which gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Cern particle physics laboratory in Geneva
PA
PA
9/10 British astronaut Major Tim Peake next to a spacesuit at the Science Museum in London back in May 2013. He will be joining the International Space Station (ISS) in late 2015.
Getty Images
Getty Images
10/10 The KSLV-1 (Naro) rocket lifts off from the launch pad at Goheung Space Center in Januar in Goheung-gun, South Korea, 2013. The rocket was originally scheduled to launch in November 2012 following two previous unsuccessful attempts in 2009 and 2010
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The existing Open Comments threads will continue to exist for those who do not subscribe to Independent Minds. Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate. Please continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates.