Taking Play Seriously, by Robin Marantz Henig, appears today in the New York Times Magazine. Henig draws on ethology, neuroscience, and developmental psychology to highlight advances in research on play. Play strikes many of us as deeply essential, but what the heck is it for? It’s not precisely clear.
Today I’ll cover some of the interesting developments about the neurobiology of play mentioned in Taking Play Seriously. So John Byers first. Byers is a zoologist at the University of Idaho who noticed that the developmental trajectory of play looks like an inverted U across many species, increasing during the juvenile period and dropping off during puberty. This pattern corresponded quite well with the growth curve of the cerebellum. The article summarizes the implications:
The synchrony suggested a few things to Byers: that play might be related to growth of the cerebellum, since they both peak at about the same time; that there is a sensitive period in brain growth, during which time it’s important for an animal to get the brain-growth stimulation of play; and that the cerebellum needs the whole-body movements of play to achieve its ultimate configuration.
