Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
I have a university diploma in clinical psychology, and we also needed to do some stuff on psychophysiology and neurology and brain. It's the first time I heared that neurological activity patterns that have not be run before should cause a headache, and brain neurons themselves also cannot feel or cause sensations of pain. Also, neurological "rewiring" does not take place from one instance to the next, but just repeated and repetitive practice, again this is a painless process. 
If you have headaches during playing, this can have many origins, from stress, over your body'S position while sitting (especially neck and back), to bloodpressure, environmental factors (light, bad air, noise), and other things like that. Headaches are mostly caused by sensory input by the nervous system being interpreted as "pain" in the brain, or the blood vessels in the brain changing their volume and swelling, increasing brainvolume and implying pressure on the whole thing (making pressure sensors ringing the - painful - alarm bell). Swelling brains also are likely to influence your cognitive functions and the activity of the effected brain areas sooner or later. Brain neurons have no pain or pressure sensors, that'S why during brain surgery you get an anestesia for cutting through thre skin, flesh and bone, but not the brain matter itself - certain types of brain surgeries even are done with the patient being conscious, he does not feel the cutting of neurons, but must report any change in his general body perceptions or cognitive functions.
Find some less exotic explanation for why you have headaches when playing certain games. Neural re-construction of your brain network are not the cause, I promise you. |
Umm I always assumed that way because the headache would diminish after more play though the tensions would not. It's most obvious when playing euro game the first time that put thinking first and foremost. In fact I had only this headache on my first and second time playing Shogun and not other games.
Umm maybe the headache was caused by mental drain or tiredness but the rewiring is definitely there as I found playing to be easier and progressively easier the more I play which is signified by the lack of headache unlike in the first or second game.
And I never said that brain wiring happening from one instance to the next
. You missed the point that a board gaming session could last 3-4 or even 6 hours and much of that time is spent on certain certain type of thinking so it is a repetitive process lasting for several hours.
It might not be the brain rewiring that caused the headache perhaps simply mental drain but the brain does indeed form new pathways made evidence by the getting easier to play the same game with much the same tensions. I simply took a liberal conclusion if it was so tiring and a challenge to think evidenced by the slight headache then the brain will rewire itself much like muscle ache. What is surprising is that the challenge and the headache diminishes after every play, most notably after the first play so somehow it does an indication of the brain being more efficient in its thinking processing.
It's similar to the condition of studying something new for extended period of time where the difficulty gets diminish as I become used to reading the book for some pages. No headache in this instance though. But I found it easier to read and understand the book or concept after some time( some substantial minutes put in from 30- 60 minutes).
Heck even just listening to certain type of music or sound could cause activation of certain part of brain. It's easy to stimulate the brain. Mid brain activation is popular here nowadays. The children after being exposed to certain type of sound that's supposed to activate their mid brain could read while being blindfolded, smell colors, see blindfolded, and solve cubic puzzle blindfolded within a very very short time and riding bicycle while being blindfolded.