Increased cerebellar gray matter volume in head chefs

Abstract

ObjectiveChefs exert expert motor and cognitive performances on a daily basis. Neuroimaging has clearly shown that that long-term skill learning (i.e., athletes, musicians, chess player or sommeliers) induces plastic changes in the brain thus enabling tasks to be performed faster and more accurately. How a chef's expertise is embodied in a specific neural network has never been investigated.MethodsEleven Italian head chefs with long-term brigade management expertise and 11 demographically-/ psychologically- matched non-experts underwent morphological evaluations.ResultsVoxel-based analysis performed with SUIT, as well as, automated volumetric measurement assessed with Freesurfer, revealed increased gray matter volume in the cerebellum in chefs compared to non-experts. The most significant changes were detected in the anterior vermis and the posterior cerebellar lobule. The magnitude of the brigade staff and the higher performance in the Tower of London test correlated with these specific gray matter increases, respectively.ConclusionsWe found that chefs are characterized by an anatomical variability involving the cerebellum. This confirms the role of this region in the development of similar expert brains characterized by learning dexterous skills, such as pianists, rock climbers and basketball players. However, the nature of the cellular events underlying the detected morphological differences remains an open question.

Brain Plasticity in Charcot-Marie-Tooth Type 1A Patients? A Combined Structural and Diffusion MRI Study

“…Hence, in a condition characterized by long-lasting impairment of distal muscle strength, manual dexterity, and walking ability ( 3 ), as well as by reduced afferent and efferent stimuli to and from the CNS, the observed increase of anterior cerebellar regional volume might reflect mechanisms of structural plasticity ( 35 ) aimed at compensating peripheral nerve deficit and enduring brain deafferentation in CMT1A patients. Indeed, similar increases of cerebellar regional GM volume have been demonstrated in healthy individuals professionally subjected to the persistent solicitation of specific motor or cognitive abilities ( 36 , 37 ), while brain structural and functional plasticity phenomena have also been reported in other peripheral neuropathies ( 11 , 38 ). In accordance with this speculation, in our study we found an inverse correlation between the increase of GM volume in the right anterior cerebellum and the CMAP obtained from ulnar motor nerve, considered as a measure of distal arm axonal damage ( 15 ).…”

Adaptation of brain functional stream architecture in athletes with fast demands of sensorimotor integration

“…In this study, the greater cerebellum GMV was specifically located in the lobules IV-V of the cerebellum and the IV-V vermian lobules in the anterior cerebellum lobe. These areas represent the arms, hands, and feet (Buckner, Krienen, Castellanos, Diaz, & Yeo, 2011;Manni & Petrosini, 2004) and are especially involved in motor execution, synchronization, coordination, control, and prediction (Cerasa et al, 2017;Koziol et al, 2014;Stoodley & Schmahmann, 2010;Wenzel, Taubert, Ragert, Krug, & Villringer, 2014). In addition, the GMV expansion in the athlete group extended to the bilateral lingual gyrus, PCC, and PCUN, which played important roles in visual attention.…”

Lenticular nucleus volume predicts performance in real‐time strategy game: cross‐sectional and training approach using voxel‐based morphometry

“…Plenty of cross-sectional imaging studies have demonstrated structural brain differences between experts in music, sport, and video games and nonexperts and showed that experts had more gray matter volume (GMV) in certain brain regions. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] However, deliberate practice is necessary but not sufficient to account for individual differences in experts and novices. [18][19][20] One of the criticisms of cross-sectional studies as providing the evidence for practice-dependent brain changes is that preexisting differences in brain organization could explain some of the differences we observe between experts and nonexperts.…”