Cerebellum
The part at the back of the brain, tucked under the rest, that coordinates movement, balance and posture. It fine-tunes each movement by learning from the last miss.
The cerebellum sits at the back of the brain, tucked under the big main part. Evidence: solid It coordinates movement, balance and posture, keeping them smooth and well timed; damage to it makes movements clumsy and unsteady. Evidence: solid It's small, but it holds most of the brain's nerve cells: about 80% of them in humans, by one careful count. Evidence: decent
Its best-known job is correcting movement. It compares the movement you meant with the one you made and adjusts the next try. Evidence: decent In a reaching task, people with damage to it adapted their aim less than healthy people, and the researchers traced that learning to the gap between what the brain expected and what happened. Evidence: decent It's also more active when you only imagine a movement, across 75 brain-scan papers. Evidence: decent
Where it gets undersold: "the balance and coordination bit, nothing more". In 20 patients whose disease was confined to the cerebellum, some also had trouble with planning, working memory, language and personality, mostly when the back part or the middle strip of it was hit. Evidence: decent
Why it matters
In aim games, every miss is the information it learns from. Evidence: decent That this makes you sharper away from the table is untested. Evidence: worth trying When you rehearse a lift in your head, it's part of the network that works, with no weight moved. Evidence: decent Both are neuroplasticity at work, as long as you keep practising. Evidence: decent