Does chess physically change the brain?

Learning may accompany brain changes, but differences between experts and beginners do not alone establish their cause. A structural difference also does not demonstrate improvement in another domain.

What does the London taxi study actually show?

Maguire and colleagues (2000) observe a larger posterior hippocampal region in London taxi drivers and regional correlations with years in the occupation, including a negative anterior correlation. These do not establish global volume gain or transfer of material between regions.

Is grey-matter change permanent?

Not necessarily. Draganski and colleagues (2004) observe regional increases after three months of learning to juggle, then reduced expansion at a third scan three months after practice stopped. The article’s text describes transient change; that word is not in its title.

Does chess improve school results?

Sala and Gobet (2017) highlight design limitations and find no specific benefit in their two mathematical problem-solving experiments. That does not mean every possible effect has been ruled out.

Does that mean chess does nothing for cognition?

Learning chess develops chess skills such as pattern recognition, specialised memory and calculation. What is not established is general transfer to distant domains. Enjoyment and learning the game do not require a general brain-enhancement promise.

Neuroplasticity and Chess: What the Studies Really Show

Search for “chess brain” and you will repeatedly encounter the claim that chess rewires your brain. Sometimes neuroplasticity adds authority, supported by two studies: London taxi drivers and jugglers.

Both studies exist and were published in prominent journals. Neither directly studies a chess-training benefit. Details of their findings matter more than the shorthand used to promote them.

What the word means, and what it does not say

Neuroplasticity refers to the nervous system’s capacity to change with experience. As an argument for a particular benefit, the word alone says very little.

Saying learning changes the brain does not specify whether the change helps elsewhere. Remembering a number or learning something from a series involves experience too. The term becomes informative when we specify which change, how long it lasts and what it does.

Popular accounts often stop before those questions.

London taxi drivers: the other half of the finding

In 2000, Eleanor Maguire and colleagues publish a structural MRI comparison of London taxi drivers and matched controls in PNAS. London drivers must pass “the Knowledge”, requiring extensive street and route knowledge.

The well-known finding is a significantly larger posterior hippocampal region in drivers, with volume correlated with years in the occupation.

The same article also reports a negative correlation between anterior hippocampal volume and years of experience. Greater posterior volume and smaller anterior volume must be read as regional findings.

These are not proof that the entire hippocampus grows. Nor does the observation establish that growth in one region caused reduction in another.

The popular image of exercising a brain like a biceps does not describe what Maguire measured. A reallocated “budget” is a metaphor, not a demonstrated mechanism.

Jugglers and the third scan

The second frequently cited study makes its follow-up particularly important.

In 2004, Bogdan Draganski and colleagues publish an experiment in Nature: 24 volunteers, mean age 22, none able to juggle, divided into two matched groups. The first scans show no grey-matter difference between groups.

The experimental group then has three months to learn a three-ball cascade. The second scan follows achievement of a precise criterion: sustaining it for sixty seconds.

The authors observe bilateral grey-matter expansion in the mid-temporal hMT/V5 region, involved in visual motion processing, and the left posterior intraparietal sulcus. These are region-specific results concerning the trained task.

Accounts often stop there. Yet there is a third scan.

It occurs three months later, after participants were instructed not to practise or improve. The authors note that most could no longer juggle correctly.

The grey-matter expansion had decreased.

The authors describe a transient and selective structural change in the text. That partial regression does not mean every brain change disappears as soon as practice stops.

The logical leap

Add studies comparing expert and beginner players, discussed in chess and the brain, and one key question remains.

A structural difference does not, by itself, demonstrate benefit. In a group comparison, it may also reflect differences predating practice.

The myth’s implicit argument is: chess changes the brain, therefore improves the brain, therefore improves everything the brain does. These are two unsupported jumps. Change is not identical to improvement, and a task-specific improvement is not a general one.

The proposed benefit can instead be tested behaviourally.

The decisive question: transfer

Transfer asks whether a skill acquired in one domain benefits another. Near transfer concerns similar tasks; far transfer concerns more distant abilities and is the disputed question here.

Sala and Gobet (2017) review this work with attention to comparison groups. A difference from a group receiving no additional activity does not isolate chess’s specific effect.

They stress that active controls are rare in the examined research. Extra adult attention, novelty, teacher enthusiasm and learning a demanding activity may all contribute; none is uniquely chess.

In two 2017 experiments published in Learning & Behavior, they compare chess instruction with an actively taught alternative while measuring mathematical problem-solving.

Those experiments do not provide evidence of the proposed specific benefit.

The same year, their Current Directions in Psychological Science review broadens the discussion to chess, music and working-memory training. Estimated effects shrink as study methodology improves.

A nonsignificant difference does not prove absolute absence of an effect. It still does not justify promising the advertised benefit.

The article on whether chess makes you more intelligent (French) develops the school-performance discussion. The narrower point here is that imaging does not replace a behavioural test of the promised benefit.

What remains true

The conclusion is not that chess does nothing.

You can genuinely improve at chess. Experienced players recognise structures and patterns beginners do not yet know. This specialised skill is real and can be measured without assuming general enhancement.

Cognitive activities and ageing deserve study. Associations discussed in chess and Alzheimer’s have causal limitations; they do not establish a preventive prescription specific to chess.

Enjoyment needs no neurological justification. Playing can matter to you without a claim about general brain improvement.

Why the claim remains attractive

Several features may make the story appealing, independently of evidence strength.

It makes a passion sound respectable. “I am developing my brain” can feel easier to defend than “I enjoy playing”. That social function does not validate the scientific claim.

It sells. A promise of school success can market a programme; it needs checking independently of the game’s interest.

Imaging can feel explanatory. With a coloured brain image, ask what difference was measured and whether it answers the actual question.

What to do with this

Choose chess for reasons that matter to you. Its beauty, difficulty, social opportunities and enjoyment can suffice without a general cognitive promise.

Be careful with “rewiring”. Ask which specific change, measured how and compared with which control group. A broad verb is not the answer.

Remember the third scan. The jugglers’ measured expansion decreased at follow-up. Duration depends on the change studied; this is not a rule for every kind of learning.

Separate the questions. General enhancement and learning this particular game need different evidence. Chess improvement can be difficult, specific and measurable in its own right.

What to retain

Taxi drivers’ regional differences do not demonstrate a global increase or material moving from one region to another. The jugglers’ grey-matter expansion decreased by the third scan and was described as transient.

The proposed broader benefit has also been tested directly. The cited experiments with active controls do not establish specific improvement in mathematical problem-solving, and estimated effects diminish as methods become more rigorous.

Chess expertise is already an achievement without a general enhancement promise.

After reading: when you encounter “chess rewires the brain”, look for the study’s comparison group. If it is missing or received no comparable activity, the specific-benefit claim needs more support.

This article is part of a series on psychology applied to chess. See also the Dunning-Kruger effect and survivorship bias.

Sources

Maguire, E. A., et al. (2000). Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. PNAS, 97, 4398–4403. Article.
Draganski, B., et al. (2004). Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427, 311–312. Article.
Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2017). Does chess instruction improve mathematical problem-solving ability? Two experimental studies with an active control group. Learning & Behavior, 45, 414–421. Article.
Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2017). Does Far Transfer Exist? Negative Evidence From Chess, Music, and Working Memory Training. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26, 515–520. Review.

Neuroplasticity and Chess: What Brain Imaging Does Not Prove