Brain flexibility
Recent revelation that professionals involved in a board game show distinct brain patterns compared to amateurs, reinforces the general idea that brain specialization accompanies repetition and practice. It has also been speculated that such specialization is correlated with Alzheimer's disease. This poses an intriguing question whether brain specialization or lack of brain flexibility foretells Alzheimer's or similar diseases.
Exercise has been conclusively shown to be beneficial to cardio-vascular systems, evolved from the era of homo-sapiens hunting for food and water. During the same time, the use of the brain must have been more diverse than modern times – with danger hiding in every nook and corner – requiring creative interventions. Just as modern humans lack physical exercise they also lack mental exercise. This may be counter intuitive to some, who have asserted that the latest batch of humans hold more brain power than our ancestors. However, it is not the brain power that is at issue here – it is brain flexibility. In some sense, the "smarter" one is – high scores in exams, beneficial specialization and well laid out career track – the less flexible her brain is likely to be. Higher the specialization, the lower the ability to deviate from expected norms.
The best example of this deficiency can be seen in scientists and engineers – both generally consider themselves to be "brainy," and more importantly able to analyze and think rationally. However, such a process is too prescribed and thus it also locks them up in the prison of established notions – with their brains growing from specialization to specialization. Flexibility, is not the ability to think outside the box – it is the ability to recognize that the box may not exist. For many creative thinkers of today, the box has to exist and thus any "blue sky thinking" they may do is always in the context of the box.
Brain flexibility – a property that humans may have lost long time ago – may define their ability to transcend space and time. Incentives in today's world are structured for a higher specialization of the brain – a trait that may also limit us in many ways.
