'Experts' Link Spirituality To Mental Illness

[Sagittarius]

To give a more honest and descriptive view of this whole thing, as most studies tend to not meassure the benefits of having the things attained through the tradeoff, just what is lost.
...heres a study meassuring the brains surface thickness.

"Meditators, compared with controls, showed significantly greater cortical thickness in the anterior regions of the brain, including the medial prefrontal cortex(forehead), superior frontal cortex(mid-chest), temporal pole and the middle and inferior temporal cortices (upper parts of the negative and positive polaritzed throat aspect)).
Significantly thinner cortical thickness was found in the posterior regions of the brain, located in the parietal and occipital areas, including the postcentral cortex, inferior parietal cortex, middle occipital cortex and posterior cingulate cortex (most areas from feet to right below navel).
Moreover, in the region adjacent to the medial prefrontal cortex, both higher fractional anisotropy values and greater cortical thickness were observed."

Sadly this study did not specify both/left/right lateralization.

another little quote;
"gray matter concentration in the right hippocampus (related to the regular upper throat-face) and right anterior insula (base of the positively polarized throat) was significantly greater in meditators.
The correlation of mean values at the right anterior insula and the hours of meditation training showed a trend toward significance.
Mean values in the right hippocampus did not correlate with the hours of meditation training."

So what does a part of the brain being thicker mean? The bigger the brain usually the smarter the animal so I'am guessing it increases processing power?