Mass General is a leading medical institute committed to providing expert care to a diverse array of communities. Their mission is to stay at the forefront of medicine by fostering a collaborative culture, pushing the boundaries of medical research, and educating the brightest minds in the field. They offer diagnostic and treatment options for both common and complex medical conditions and strive to bridge innovation science with state-of-the-art clinical medicine for the benefit of their patients. A significant part of their work is dedicated to the study of meditation and its impact on the brain and cognitive aging. They have found compelling evidence that meditation can lead to experience-based structural alterations in the brain and may slow down age-related atrophy in certain brain areas. Mass General is also engaged in a large project studying the effects of meditation training on cognition and brain structure in older adults, exploring if meditation can slow the normal decline in cognition that occurs with age. In collaboration with the Benson Henry Mind Body Medical Institute, Mass General is comparing the effects of different mindfulness practices on brain structure and function. This project investigates the changes in neural structure and function following yoga, the Relaxation Response, or a control program, and compares them to changes in stress biomarkers. Mass General's research on mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy has found that these practices can improve working memory, suppression of irrelevant mental sets, and body awareness in patients with chronic pain and comorbid depression. Their research also indicates that elderly female yoga practitioners may have greater cortical thickness and that practicing kripalu yoga and vipassana meditation may enhance widespread functional connectivity of the caudate in older adults.