The profession not only determines the lifestyle and social circle of a person, but also affects the structure of the brain, scientists say. The need to solve similar tasks day in and day out increases some areas of the brain, while suppressing others.
Cosmic changes
In 2013, an international team of scientists decided to look at how microgravity affects the structure of the human brain. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), they took pictures of the brains of several astronauts preparing to travel to the International Space Station. After their return to Earth, the MRI was repeated, and the images obtained were compared with pre-flight images.
The results interested the scientists so much that they invited other members of the expeditions to the ISS to participate in the study, and the project itself was extended for another four years. During this time, 18 people went through the experiment, who spent about six months in orbit each, and 16 astronauts, whose duration of stay in space was no more than two weeks.
A comparison of the pictures taken before and after the flight showed approximately the same picture. Work on the ISS led to the fact that the central groove separating the frontal and parietal lobes narrowed, the cerebral cortex moved slightly up the cranium, and the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the parietal lobes was disrupted. Moreover, the longer a person spent in space, the more pronounced these changes were.
Similar data were obtained by Russian and Belgian scientists after analyzing images of the brains of ten cosmonauts. In particular, they recorded that after a flight into space, the volume of gray matter in the temporal region of the cortex decreased by almost three percent - the maximum decrease was 3.3 percent. The white matter content also decreased, and the shape of the brain itself changed slightly. True, six months later, the amount of gray matter returned to pre-flight values, but the white matter did not recover.
Changes in the astronaut's brain. On the left is the subject's brain before the flight into space, on the right - after.
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Brainy taxi drivers
However, the structure of the brain can change with less extreme work. For example, taxi drivers have a slightly larger hippocampus, the brain region responsible for the transition of short-term memory into long-term memory and processing spatial information about the environment, than in other people. According to neurophysiologists, this is due to the need to memorize hundreds of routes and detours. Moreover, the volume of gray matter increases precisely during the learning process.
Researchers at University College London first scanned the brains of 79 transport company trainees before they began memorizing a road map of the British capital. On average, it takes three to four years, as a licensed taxi driver must know almost every house on every one of the 25,000 London streets. The brain was scanned again after the volunteers passed the city knowledge exam. For those who answered all the questions correctly, scientists recorded an increase in the hippocampus. Those who failed the test did not have such changes in the brain.
As for the drivers who are guided by the navigator, then they have the opposite process - this part of the brain shrinks, as it were. Using the gadget turns off the hippocampus, which is needed to simulate various routes in the head.
Chess results
A decrease in certain regions of the brain is also recorded in professional chess players. Head scans of 20 famous players and 20 amateurs showed that the former had a reduced volume of gray matter in the occipital-temporal lobe, which participates in the presentation of objects relative to each other, and a reduced volume of the caudate nucleus, which is responsible for making decisions. In addition, there was a decrease in the throughput of the medial longitudinal beam, which is considered one of the main ways of transmitting information from the visual zones to the executive areas. In general terms, this picture resembles changes in the brain of alcoholics, but no more.
This is likely due to the fact that when playing professional chess players use parts of the brain involved in the processing of sensory information, and not those associated with intelligence and logic.
Oddly enough, programmers practically do not use brain structures associated with logic. When performing work tasks, they activate areas of the brain that are responsible for memory, attention and language abilities. This picture is typical for professional linguists. In addition, those who specialize in phonetics analyze and describe the sounds of different languages have a better developed auditory cortex. It has more digital convolutions filled with white matter.
But in professional musicians, the brain zones that regulate finger movements are significantly increased. And the more experienced the violinist, the greater the volume of the cortex associated with fine motor skills.
Alfiya Enikeeva