Altered Intrinsic and Casual Functional Connectivities of the Middle Temporal Visual Motion Area Subregions in Chess Experts.

Limei Song,Yanming Ge,Peng Dong,Jinfeng Long

doi:10.3389/fnins.2020.605986

Abstract

An outstanding chess player needs to accumulate massive visual and spatial information for chess configurations. Visual motion area (MT) is considered as a brain region specialized for visual motion perception and visuospatial attention processing. However, how long-term chess training shapes the functional connectivity patterns of MT, especially its functional subregions, has rarely been investigated. In our study, using resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and Granger causality analysis (GCA), we studied the changed functional couplings of MT subregions between 28 chess master players and 27 gender- and age-matched healthy novices to reveal the neural basis of long-term professional chess training. RSFC analysis identified decreased functional connections between right dorsal-anterior subregion (CI1.R) and left angular gyrus, and increased functional connections between right ventral-anterior MT subregion (CI2.R) and right superior temporal gyrus in chess experts. Moreover, GCA analyses further found increased mutual interactions of left angular gyrus and CI1.R in chess experts compared to novice players. These findings demonstrate that long-term professional chess training could enhance spatial perception and reconfiguration and semantic processing efficiency for superior performance.

Highlights

Chess playing is a complex intellectual game that is considered as a hard mental activity that requires sophisticated problem-solving skills
We studied the specific changes of functional connectivity patterns of each motion area (MT) subregion in chess experts to uncover the neuroanatomical basis of brain plasticity induced by long-term chess practice using a full data-driven approach
Granger causality analysis (GCA) analysis further revealed chess experts showed enhanced mutual interactions between Cl1.R and AG.L. These findings suggest chess visual practice may enhance the neuroplasticity of Cl1.R and Cl2.R in MT, and the increased functional connections resulting from the professional chess training may enhance visuospatial attention and semantic and auditory memory processing

Summary

Introduction

Chess playing is a complex intellectual game that is considered as a hard mental activity that requires sophisticated problem-solving skills. The daily skill practice can result in the representative neural structural and functional changes that underlie the related particular skill (Maguire et al, 2000; Gaser and Schlaug, 2003a,b; Draganski et al, 2004; Zou et al, 2012; Song et al, 2020). Chess is seen as a typical example for an expertise task requiring domain-specific experience to study brain structural and functional plasticity. To reveal the functional changes, master chess players provide a good opportunity to uncover the neural basis of brain plasticity induced by long-term skill practice (Zhou et al, 2018).

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