A new study suggests that people who are fond of playing action video games may lose gray matter in the area of the brain that is linked to mental disorders.
A group of researchers conducted a study on 100 expert and non-expert video game players in order to assess the effects of shooting games such as ‘Call of Duty’ or ‘Battlefield’, and compare them with “3-D platform” games in the Super Mario series. They used a virtual-reality test, MRIs and 90 hours of game-playing to study the impact on the specific region of the brain associated with spatial and episodic memory.
The results revealed that although shooting-style video games improved attention and short-term memory in some players, they caused loss of brain matter in some others. The type of effect may depend on the style of playing.
While gray matter in the hippocampus grew in those who used so-called spatial strategies to find their way in the action video game, those who navigated the same games by learned response, showed loss of gray matter.
Super Mario game players, on the other hand, demonstrated growth in either the hippocampus or another region of the brain known as the entorhinal cortex.
The authors stated that these results do not imply that all video game players will develop a mental disorder. However, they also mentioned that a compromised gray matter would increase their risk for certain brain disorders like schizophrenia, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.
To avoid these risks, playing video games must be balanced with other activities such as social interactions, physical workout, and adequate sleep, they added.
Source: Molecular Psychiatry Journal