Yoga Helps Prevent and Reverse Brain Anatomy Changes Due to Chronic Pain

Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice or discipline that has its roots in India. A new study has found that brain anatomy changes and impairment caused due to chronic pain can be prevented or even reversed with the help of yoga. The study conducted by National Institutes of Health explained that chronic pain patients go through anxiety, depression, deficits in cognitive functions and reduced gray matter volume and white matter integrity in the brain, but yoga and meditation, can counteract these brain anatomy affects of chronic pain.

M. Catherine Bushnell, scientific director said, "Yoga practitioners have more gray matter than controls in multiple brain regions, including those involved in pain modulation as gray matter increases in yogis correspond to duration of yoga practice. Assessing the impact of brain anatomy on pain reduction, gray matter changes in the internal structures of the cerebral cortex are most significant for pain tolerance."

The study concluded that patients with chronic pain can go for mind-body practices that can exert a protective effect on brain gray matter that counteracts the neuroanatomical effects of chronic pain.

Source-Medindia