People's reaction
I usually notice the reaction of the people about a chess player as they are either considered as lazy or more intelligent than others. Therefore, I here decided to write about the structural differences of a chess player’s brain and there resulting behavior about that also.
There are many renowned chess players from the ancient time. Though this game was invented in India, very few Indian names are known about that. Most famous chess player, Robert James Fischer (Bobby Fischer), of the middle era, was most famous; However, later there was a controversy about his psychological illness. Same was portrayed in movie ‘Pawn Sacrifice’. In 1800 also similar was found with legendary player Paul Murphy. Though every legendary Grand Master is a little bit crazy, there are many things needed to understand about them and their brain.
Anatomy of Brain.
Since almost 20 years, many experiments are going to understand the differences in the brain anatomy of chess players in which MRI scans of many expert players shows that there are significant changes in certain parts of the brain of chess player due to long-term training which makes them more efficient in those certain tasks. Such as Juggen Hengi showed that grey matter thickness of the cortex region of the brain was reduced in an expert chess player as compared with control subjects. Similarly, they showed the clear morphological differences in frontal and parietal and temporal regions of the brain. In addition, the OTJ and the fusiform gyrus and the caudal nucleus also shown to be altered in a brain of a chess player.
Regions of brain involved during chess game
In initial research, an article in Nature shows the areas of the brain involved during a game of chess. It demonstrated the various regions of the brain which are involved in cognitive functions are highly involved during this game. For example. Activation of the temporal lobe and Hippocampus region was very high in the brain during a chess game. Similarly, frontal cortex was also involved also.
What is the role of these brain regions
I had mentioned many terms of brain regions which might be unknown for most of the people. Thus, let’s simplify the role of every term I used in usual behavior of human being.
Grey matter: - Grey matter is a layer in the cortex of the brain which is a bit greyish as compared to other parts of the brain. The main function of Grey matter is considered in cognition and with aging, it is found to be decreased in thickness. Thus, it has become controversial that chess players have very high cognition yet decreased Grey matter.
Frontal region: - This area is involved in knowledge storage and its retrieval network. It is present in the frontal lobe of the brain.
Parietal region: - This region of the brain is also involved in knowledge chunking process.
Hippocampus: - it involved in learning, memory, and retrieval of new information. The novice chess players have shown the involvement of this region more than experts. The explanation is experts have knowledge of a lot of games they already know a lot of chess positions as they find any live position similar to their database they retrieve the older memory of the game and improvements in that and play accordingly. An example has been shown in the following video. However, Recent studies show that this region also involved in problem-solving tasks also.
OTJ and fusiform gyrus: - OTJ and fusiform gyrus are brain region shown to be involved in object recognition. As they need to recognize the position and setup of pieces on board.
In conclusion, the long training of brain due to the chess practice changes expert players brain in excellent problem solver, very high cognitive skills as they are good learners, Higher long-term, and short-term memory, Highly disciplined and organized (similar to the monks). However, everything comes with a cost; due to higher cognitive value, it is difficult for them to connect with people; thus, results in slightly decreased sociability. For example, all great chess Grandmasters loved to spend most of the time alone, they love their own time in learning reading playing etc. including current world champion Magnus Carlsen.
I end this post with a TED talk tells about what chess does to the brain.
