How Neuroscience Relates to Board Games

during elementary school

two big things happened in my life i

learned how to play the board game

monopoly

and i began questioning why everything i

did was somehow linked to the brain

while both developments took place

separately

they would later become inexplicably

intertwined

in my journey of exploring

interdisciplinary neuroscience

so let me walk you through my own

version of monopoly

up until high school i did not know much

about the brain

i pictured it as a simple wobbly pinkish

gray little lump that was sitting in my

head

that i wouldn’t necessarily think about

much unless i was heading a soccer ball

or watching a movie about

zombies or just having a headache this

is a similar experience for most of us

we don’t actually delve deeper into

fields such as neuroscience that study

the brain and nervous system

unless something greatly piques our

interest in curiosity

such as learning about a miracle drug

for alzheimer’s disease that came on the

evening news

or experiencing a neurological condition

or mental illness so if at

some point in our lives we all start out

with an equal fifteen hundred dollars

allocated to us at the start of monopoly

equal base no unfair neuroscience

knowledge

perhaps depending on how you’re playing

the game you might include different

distributions of the bill denominations

you might start off with two fifty

dollar bills instead of

one one hundred dollar bill things like

that

we can’t obviously all come from the

same exact scientific background or

expertise of course

some of us are dancers tech experts or

philosophers

these are the differences in our

starting points the various perspectives

from which we approach studying the

brain

now let’s roll the pair of monopoly dice

and advance by the number of spaces

around the board

based on what number we roll the number

of spaces we advance

is completely up to chance just as a

chance event is often

what nudges us to learn about the brain

for example most of us will not wake up

one morning and decide to

enroll in a neuroscience event or

competition but rather

one thing leads to another and another

in my own experience i found out about

this high school neuroscience

competition called the brain bee

through a link for my regional science

fair the bit of information digging i

did afterwards confirmed my interest

in signing up for the event but i

definitely did not open up my search

engine that morning with the attention

of finding neuroscience opportunities

it just happened through a bit of luck

and randomness

which is exactly how monopoly proceeds

every time it is your turn

now previously we rolled the paradise

and we moved forward by

several spaces to say land on a property

that belongs to the orange color group

now in monopoly when you land on and

purchase multiple properties

from the same color group it gives you

an advantage

i will refer to this as depth now on the

other hand

for a rather unlucky player who lands on

a bunch of disparate properties from

different color groups

maybe they have one property from each

of the orange pink green blue

color groups i’ll refer to this as

breath

now in the neuroscience world having

breath is just as important as having

depth

of knowledge if a scientist is involved

in only

one niche area of neuroscience such as

behavioral neuroscience

then this would constitute as having

depth of knowledge

in behavioral neuroscience however

if a scientist has some knowledge

touching upon behavioral neuroscience

neurophysiology neuropharmacology

and such areas then this breath of

knowledge

allows them to understand how an

advancement in one branch of

neuroscience their specific field

can advance developments and others

having this multi-disciplinary lens to

neuroscience

allows scientists to make even more

effectively informed decisions

which leads to a very well-rounded

translation of neuroscience to the real

world

directly affecting patients in clinical

settings

all the way to individuals like us going

about our daily lives

bringing together different branches of

neuroscience and bringing together

properties from different color groups

and monopoly

allows us to build a stronger base to

set ourselves up for success in the

future

no one can truly become the master of

monopoly properties

or the absolute expert in one branch of

neuroscience or stem in general

the chances of that happening are very

low and perhaps the end result is not

the best as well

when we play monopoly most of us enjoy

the time we spend

actually playing the game from start to

finish more so than simply winning

the round of the game that is hoping

that the game doesn’t get too

competitive of course

but the act of playing the game itself

also translates

to the scientific world through the

research process

a large research finding does not

necessarily need to be

the most important or meaningful part of

neuroscience

the scientific process itself can be

highly insightful

and affect other aspects of our life

the journey to a conclusion or result is

meaningful

when we consider the time invested into

expanding our own

personal knowledge highlighting a gap in

existing general neuroscience knowledge

and then working to change or further

the science platform

i believe that younger neuroscience

students and stem students

in general place a large amount of

emphasis on supposed successful science

for youth scientists winning the science

monopoly game translates to

finding a breakthrough miracle drug or

publishing a manuscript in a highly

prestigious journal

rather there’s much more that goes into

that

first it takes failure to get to a

success point

it takes losing that monopoly a few

times to understand how the game works

and science is the same way it takes

trial and error measurements

and experimentation to understand if you

are headed

in the right direction second

neuroscience should not merely focus on

the end result of recognition

because the field is meant to tell us

more about how the human brain functions

in order to understand ourselves and

it’s more meaningful to be able to

translate scientific findings

the general public through science

communication and

empower our communities with evidenced

fact findings to enrich their lives

in high school i found that when we

learn about the scientific process or

work to develop our analytical skills

the system greatly emphasizes coming to

a conclusion pinnacle

placing importance on very concrete

results and being successful

but sometimes we get so blindsided by

only placing our focus

on end results that we forget to live

through the very small experiences

along the way such as receiving a

helpful

monopoly community chest card boost or

just landing a lucky dice roll

neuroscience is more about the

collaboration that occurs every single

day

with a feeling of delight when a program

code for a study

runs correctly after you have spent an

insanely large amount of time

on fixing it now as i furthered my

scientific experiences into college

i strongly believe in paying attention

to each small point of neuroscience and

research

and understanding how it contributes to

the greater whole

after all every single one of my turns

determines my ending outcome

in monopoly so the next time that you

are sitting with your family

around the monopoly board on a fine

winter evening in november

just take a moment to think about how

much smaller impact activities like

board games

can allow us to develop our mindset for

understanding the world

of science and even neuroscience that is

around us

in a much more meaningful personalized

way

thank you