Juggling takes stage as brain modifier
By Bruce Bower
Learning to juggle is a neat trick for the brain as well as the hands. Two neural areas involved in perceiving and remembering visual motion became 3 percent to 4 percent larger during the 3 months it took volunteers to master a basic three-ball juggling routine, say Arne May of the University of Regensburg in Germany and his coworkers.
Over the next 3 months, the same brain structures then shrank in volume by 1 percent to 2 percent if the jugglers stopped practicing their newfound skill, the scientists report in the Jan. 22 Nature.