Well, at least when it comes to becoming successful at gaming. That’s what some researchers are saying now; so if, for example, you find yourself struggling with certain kinds of video games, it may be your brain size that is to blame.
According to the findings published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, certain parts of the brain may be larger than the others; so much so that the proportions are totally out of whack. This disproportion may explain why some individuals are better at certain tasks than others.
More on the research and the findings from BBC:
MRI scans showed participants with a larger nucleus accumbens, which is part of the brain’s reward centre, outperformed others in the first few hours, perhaps due to the “sense of achievement and the emotional reward” accompanying achievement in the earliest stages of learning, the team speculated.
But those players who ultimately performed best on the game in which priorities changed had larger sections deep in the centre of the brain, known as the caudate and putamen.
So it’s not just gaming overall that is affected. It is also the kind of task that you have to achieve throughout the game!
If you’re tempted to be fatalistic and give up on gaming, don’t be. The researchers say that the brain is “fairly plastic,” meaning that it can be trained to change and perform much better. More so, they say that at the end of the day, it is what you do with your brain that counts. Yep, brain size is a factor but it is something that can always be overcome!