The architecture of the chess player׳s brain

Hänggi, Jürgen; Brütsch, Karin; Siegel, Adrian M.; Jäncke, Lutz

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.07.019

Cited by 62 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…An increasing number of training studies reviewed earlier (18,19) has provided convincing evidence for this assumption. Nevertheless, little is known about mechanisms linking training (and the resulting expertise) to the brain volume.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The last decade of research on neuroplasticity shows that the gray matter volume of relevant cortical regions can change systematically as a function of spatial navigation (17), and long-term practice in a spatio-motor coordination task such as juggling (18), games such as chess and GO (19), and musical instruments (20). Further support for the hypothesis that social relations can modulate structural properties of the brain comes from a systematic relationship between social network size and the volume of the amygdala and certain paralimbic regions (21).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Reduced orbitofrontal cortical volume is associated with interdependent self-construal

Kitayama

Yanagisawa

Ito

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Interdependent self-construal refers to a view of the self as embedded in relationships with others. Prior work suggests that this construal is linked to a strong value placed on social obligations and duties. Interdependent people are therefore cognitively attuned to others and various social events in their surroundings while downregulating their personal goals. In the present work, we examined whether structural properties of the brain predict interdependent self-construal. We performed a structural magnetic resonance imaging on 135 Japanese young adults while assessing (i) independent and interdependent self-construals and (ii) the degree to which individuals form vivid images of external objects (object imagery). The cortical volume of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) (a core cortical region responsible for value-based decisionmaking and, thus, inherently involved in personal goals and desires) inversely predicted interdependent self-construal. Further analysis found that the highest level of interdependent self-construal is achieved when those who are relatively low in the OFC volume are simultaneously high in object imagery, consistent with previous evidence that interdependence, as realized via obligation and duty, requires both the reduced selfinterest and vigilant cognitive attunement to environmental context.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced orbitofrontal cortical volume is associated with interdependent self-construal

Kitayama

Yanagisawa

Ito

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Studying expertise-related behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroanatomical between-group differences cross-sectionally has a long tradition in plasticity and expertise research. For example, cross-sectional studies with musicians [31, 32], sportsmen [33–36], chess-players [37, 38], or with participants with different intellectual abilities [39] have been conducted in the past and present [40]. We applied the same research strategy here by comparing older participants with different cognitive training histories.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expertise-related functional brain network efficiency in healthy older adults

et al. 2017

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BackgroundIn view of age-related brain changes, identifying factors that are associated with healthy aging are of great interest. In the present study, we compared the functional brain network characteristics of three groups of healthy older participants aged 61–75 years who had a different cognitive and motor training history (multi-domain group: participants who had participated in a multi-domain training; visuomotor group: participants who had participated in a visuomotor training; control group: participants with no specific training history). The study’s basic idea was to examine whether these different training histories are associated with differences in behavioral performance as well as with task-related functional brain network characteristics. Based on a high-density electroencephalographic measurement one year after training, we calculated graph-theoretical measures representing the efficiency of functional brain networks.ResultsBehaviorally, the multi-domain group performed significantly better than the visuomotor and the control groups on a multi-domain task including an inhibition domain, a visuomotor domain, and a spatial navigation domain. In terms of the functional brain network features, the multi-domain group showed significantly higher functional connectivity in a network encompassing visual, motor, executive, and memory-associated brain areas in the theta frequency band compared to the visuomotor group. These brain areas corresponded to the multi-domain task demands. Furthermore, mean connectivity of this network correlated positively with performance across both the multi-domain and the visuomotor group. In addition, the multi-domain group showed significantly enhanced processing efficiency reflected by a higher mean weighted node degree (strength) of the network as compared to the visuomotor group.ConclusionsTaken together, our study shows expertise-dependent differences in task-related functional brain networks. These network differences were evident even a year after the acquisition of the different expertise levels. Hence, the current findings can foster understanding of how expertise is positively associated with brain functioning during aging.

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“…In healthy young to middle age adults, decreased CT is associated with a performance advantage across a range of cognitive domains, including attention (Westlye et al 2011), word-reading (Blackmon et al 2011), and expert chess-playing (Hänggi et al 2014). When cognitive domain-specific performance discrepancies are observed, a verbal over visuospatial advantage is associated with decreased CT in bilateral occipito-temporal and frontal regions; whereas, a visuospatial over verbal advantage is associated with increased CT in the same regions (Margolis et al 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prefrontal lobe structural integrity and trail making test, part B: converging findings from surface-based cortical thickness and voxel-based lesion symptom analyses

Miskin

Thesen

Barr

et al. 2015

Brain Imaging and Behavior

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Surface-based cortical thickness (CT) analyses are increasingly being used to investigate variations in brain morphology across the spectrum of brain health, from neurotypical to neuropathological. An outstanding question is whether individual differences in cortical morphology, such as regionally increased or decreased CT, are associated with domain-specific performance deficits in healthy adults. Since CT studies are correlational, they cannot establish causality between brain morphology and cognitive performance. A direct comparison with classic lesion methods is needed to determine whether the regional specificity of CT-cognition correlations is similar to that observed in patients with brain lesions. We address this question by comparing the neuroanatomical overlap of effects when 1) whole brain vertex-wise CT is tested as a correlate of performance variability on a commonly used neuropsychological test of executive function, Trailmaking Test Part B (TMT-B), in healthy adults and 2) voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VBLSM) is used to map lesion location to performance decrements on the same task in patients with frontal lobe lesions. We found that reduced performance on the TMT-B was associated with increased CT in bilateral prefrontal regions in healthy adults and that results spatially overlapped in the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex with findings from the VBLSM analysis in patients with frontal brain lesions. Findings indicate that variations in the structural integrity of the left dorsomedial prefrontal lobe, ranging from individual CT differences in healthy adults to structural lesions in patients with neurological disorders, are associated with poor performance on the TMT-B. These converging results suggest that the left dorsomedial prefrontal region houses a critical region for the complex processing demands of TMT-B, which include visuomotor tracking, sequencing, and cognitive flexibility.

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The architecture of the chess player׳s brain

Cited by 62 publications

References 68 publications

Reduced orbitofrontal cortical volume is associated with interdependent self-construal

Reduced orbitofrontal cortical volume is associated with interdependent self-construal

Expertise-related functional brain network efficiency in healthy older adults

Prefrontal lobe structural integrity and trail making test, part B: converging findings from surface-based cortical thickness and voxel-based lesion symptom analyses

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