Macrocosm: Chess could be our solution to an aging brain

The Queen’s Gambit - Netflix

Chess has come to the forefront of the American mainstream time and time again. Grandmasters stir up interest for their youth and their extraordinary genius, centuries-old chess sets are sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and movies like “Bobby Fischer Against The World” and “The Coldest Game” illustrate the struggles of real and imagined chess professionals. Most recently, the Netflix original “The Queen’s Gambit” shows a young orphan with extraordinary intelligence as she rises through a male-dominated space while battling her personal vices and shortcomings. 

Chess is often portrayed as only for experts -- a game where the barrier to entry is reserved for those who have years to practice. However, chess may have more benefits to beginners and amateurs than previously thought. A recent study from the University of Brescia shows that chess may be a way for the brain to develop better, more interconnected pathways of neural activity, and that chess playing may be a way to stave off Alzheimer’s or other neurodegenerative diseases that cause dementia.

To understand how, you must understand how the brain operates -- something that neuroscientists have been mapping out for centuries.

How Do We Use Our Brains?

A common misconception of the brain is that we use one area of it at a time. When we take in visual stimuli, we use the occipital lobe. When we store away information for the day, we use the hippocampus. Every part of the brain is specialized and static, and each is only utilized when it needs to be.

However, recent studies have shown that the brain not only utilizes many different areas in response to different tasks and stimuli but that the brain changes as we use parts of it. Neuroscientists now look at the brain’s functional connectivity -- how every part works with one another. This connection between different parts can lead sections of the brain on opposite sides to be activated in conjunction with a single activity. 

For example, the storing of a memory involves several parts of the brain in many different places: the prefrontal cortex in the front of the brain, the neocortex at the very top of the brain, and the amygdala, an almond-shaped gland situated in the temporal lobe. Memories do not just depend on an individual location of the brain but the interactions between these three areas of the mind.

Studies on the mind do not only depend on the data gathered while the brain is performing a specific task but also how the brain behaves during rest. MRI data are typically analyzed under an assumption long throught true: that resting minds experience one long, continuous connectivity state through a rest scan. However, as recent analyses have shown, this is not an accurate assessment of the brain. The brain changes rapidly during rest, sparking off multiple unique connectivity states over the course of an MRI scan. This finding led neuroscientists down a new and untapped field of brain analysis: temporal variance, or a change based on time.

Temporal Variance and Movie-Making

To observe these discrete changes in resting brain activity, neuroscientists have to become mathematicians for a moment. But, as Enrico Premi, head author of the study, described, they also become cinematographers of a sort.

Each discrete activity is like a picture of the brain’s activity. But, as Premi describes, his team didn’t just want to look at the individual picture. By tying together five minutes of resting brain activity into a sort of slideshow, he was able to turn a picture into a movie.

“It’s not a matter of one specific bundle of the brain,” says Premi. “There is a global, complex modification of all the brain, and at the end of the day, all the brain is more flexible and more dynamic.”

Through this method of looking at the brain as a whole, and viewing all the different “pictures” in succession, neuroscientists can identify “meta-states.” These meta-states can describe the individual neurons and how they can fluctuate over time.

There are similar signals between different regions of the brain that co-occur during rest, says Premi. By zooming in and taking sections, you can see the discrete and separate behaviors of those signals. The more differences in meta-states, the greater the brain flexibility and dynamic change within it. This phenomenon also boosts its preparedness to avoid degradation.

So What About Chess?

Between beginner and master chess players, studies have shown a 30-40% difference in distances between meta-states. This difference implies that experienced chess players’ brains have a higher amount of whole-brain activity during rest, as well as a more flexible and interconnected mind.

These benefits do not just extend to experienced chess players. Beginner chess players also receive a litany of benefits from the game, ranging from thinking more creatively to having better problem solving skills. They may also develop the ability to ward against degenerative brain diseases.

Premi states that it’s not the level of skill you achieve with this game, but the picking up of a new skill at all that leads to this multifacetedness and resilience of the mind. You don’t need to be an expert to gain the benefits, but taking the first step can be a significant boost to your mental acumen, whether you’re five or 75.

Chess can be a better solution to improving brain flexibility and function than even specially-trained apps, like Luminosity, which only train one section of the brain at a time. Daily application of brain function is multifaceted and dynamic. Individual training of one area of the brain does not help the overall ability for the brain to function, make connections, work outside of the box, and stave off degenerative diseases.

“When you play chess, even as a beginner, even occasionally, even after years of not practicing, you are moving in the right way to sculpt your brain in a better way,” says Premi. “You are not simply playing a board game. You are taking a significant action for the future.”