Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine
Experts of abacus operation demonstrate extraordinary ability in mental calculation. There is psychological evidence that abacus experts utilize a mental image of an abacus to remember and manipulate large numbers in solving problems; however, the neural correlates underlying this expertise is unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared the neural correlates associated with three mental-operation tasks (numeral, spatial, verbal) among six experts in abacus operations and eight non-experts. In general, there was more involvement of neural correlates for visuospatial processing (e.g., right premotor and parietal areas) for abacus experts during the numeral mental-operation task. The activity of these areas and the fusiform cortex was correlated with the size of numerals used in the numeral mental-operation task. Particularly, the posterior superior parietal cortex revealed significantly enhanced activity for experts compared with controls during the numeral mental-operation task. Comparison with the other mental-operation tasks indicated that activity in the posterior superior parietal cortex was relatively specific to computation in 2-dimensional space. In conclusion, the mental calculation of abacus experts is likely associated with enhanced involvement of the neural resources for visuospatial information processing in 2-dimensional space.
Authors:
TAKASHI HANAKAWA (Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA)
MANABU HONDA (Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan. PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Corp., Kawaguchi, Japan)
TOMOHISA OKADA (National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan)
HIDENAO FUKUYAMA (Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan)
HIROSHI SHIBASAKI (Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan. National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan)