fMRI shows link between parietal lobe and caudate nucleus critical for intuition |

I grew up being told that the average person uses 3% of their brain for conscious thought. It was my job to use more of it. (That myth that we use 10% of our brains is just that- we use our brains to see, to hear, etc- and probably most of it. But, that is not the same thing as what portion of our brain we use for cogent thinking.)

We are now finding more definitive answers- not as percentages, but as what portions of our brain are critical for various higher thought. Scientists at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (Japan) have examined our brains via fMRI while playing a shogi (a Japanese game, similar in concept to chess). Dr. Keiji Tanaka et al studied 11 professional players (play some 4 hours a day for years) and 17 amateurs of shogi; they published their results in Science. They chose the game of shogi because professional players have to have developed intuitive thinking, as well as employ their vast experience with the different moves and games, to play well. The researchers hoped to discern the brain mechanisms and connections involved with such thought.

Interestingly, the professional shogi players had extensive activity in their caudate nucleus and the precuneus regions of their parietal lobes, demonstrating a connection or link between the regions that was associated with shogi playing. The cauate nucleus is associated with cognitive functionality, while the precuneus region is associated with pattern recognition. Earlier this year, Dr. Kirk Erickson et al presented data indicating that as people trained to play games, they developed a larger caudate nucleus than the less proficient folk (Erickson et al, U Pittsburgh, Cerebral Cortex).

The professional players took less than 8 seconds to determine their next moves, having searched many possibilities to discern that move. Those actions all involved the precuneus section of the parietal lobe, and were drawn from memory. (This information was gleaned from a recent podcast discussing the article.)

This research group, however, did not find larger volume caudate nuclei. Dr. Keiji Tanaka feels the difference is that Erickson’s group studied sensory-motor games (their subject played Space Fortress, a game developed at the University of Illinois) over 24 hours, while shogi is purely a cognitive game and this study compared amateurs to professionals.