Welcome, innovative viewers, to Science and Spirituality. The human brain is a vastly complex organ containing some 50 to 100 billion nerve cells or neurons.

One of the amazing aspects of the brain is that it continues to produce new neurons throughout our life and is able to redefine its structure over time after new experiences such as learning a new skill or seeing a new city.

This re-arranging of neural pathways is referred to as brain plasticity or neuro-plasticity. What role does meditation play in the development of our brain, how it functions, and the conscious states we experience?

For answers to these questions, we turned to Dr. Fred Travis, the Chair of the Maharishi Vedic Science Department and Director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition at the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa, USA. For the past 20 years he has researched the evolution of the human brain and investigated the nature of consciousness. He has published 40 academic papers regarding research in these areas.