“This Is Your Brain on Silence,” an article in Nautilus (a different kind of science magazine that delivers big-picture science by reporting on a single monthly topic from multiple perspectives), offers fascinating perspective on the value of silence, including this:
“[In 2013] a Duke University regenerative biologist, Imke Kirste . . . found that two hours of silence per day prompted cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory, involving the senses. . . Conditions like dementia and depression have been associated with decreasing rates of neurogenesis in the hippocampus. If a link between silence and neurogenesis could be established in humans, she says, perhaps neurologists could find a therapeutic use for silence.”
