The Sanskrit Effect

The Sanskrit Effect

Memory research is of great interest to many neuroscientists, and like the example that we learned in class about the Buddhist monks, this article also focuses on a specific group of people who are considered to be "experts" in what they do. In particular, this neuroscientist examined Vedic Sanskrit pandits in India who, like the Buddhist monks, train for many years, therefore many hours, in oral memorization of 3,000-year-old oral texts that can be up to 100,000 words. For many traditional Indian scholars, memorizing these texts is a standard task, but the memorization and recitation must be the exact words. 

Even this neuroscientist, who also spent a number of years studying Sanskrit, would notice how its study impacted his mind and how easily he was able to repeat full sentences in the way one of the pandits might. This is what inspired this study and what the researcher called the "Sanskrit effect". 

For this study, an unspecified number of professional Vedic Pandits participated with controls for age, gender, handedness, eye-dominance, and the number of languages spoken. Structural MRIs were taken for each individual and the results were pretty fascinating! According to the MRIs, there were actually brain regions in the Pandits that were noticeably larger compared to the controls. Most notably, was the increased grey matter thickness in both the cerebral cortex and in the right hippocampus. The right hippocampus specializes in memory patterns for sound or visual-spatial stimuli, so for this area to be structurally larger for these Pandits makes sense because the exact recitation tasks they must take on require memorization of the precise sound patterns so that they can reproduce it themselves. The thickening of the cortex was also more in the right hemisphere, specifically in the temporal lobe which deals with voice identification. 

The results of the study are quite fascinating given what we have learned about memory and how the more practice/rehearsal we do, the more we strengthen the synaptic connections in our brain areas. Given what we also learned about the neuroanatomy of declarative memory and how over time those memories will be cycled into higher cortical regions, it makes sense to see the increased grey matter in the higher cortical regions of the brain. 

Although the study didn't quite answer the initial question of there being a "Sanskrit effect", it did bring up the question on if the increased grey matter in the pandits', especially in areas associated with verbal memory, means they could be less prone to memory disorders like dementia and Alzheimer's? That question remains to be answered, but if evidence proves that to be true then there is a possibility of verbal memory training to help elderly populations who may be at risk for these cognitive disorders. Perhaps even preventing its onset for those who have some sort of genetic risk. 

All of the hours these Pandits put in and their recitations abilities prove their expertise. Much like the Buddhists monks that train for 10,000 + hours and show evidence of actually being able to control their preconscious emotional reactions, these Pandits show memory expertise in a structural manner and their abilities could help us to develop exact training that may benefit a large population of elderly individuals and others with cognitive impairments. 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-neuroscientist-explores-the-sanskrit-effect/