Past research
has shown that people who use caudate nucleus-dependent navigation strategies
have decreased grey matter and lower functional brain activity in the
hippocampus. Video gamers now spend a collective three billion hours per week
in front of their screens. In fact, it is estimated that the average young
person will have spent some 10,000 hours gaming by the time they are 21. The
effects of intense video gaming on the brain are only beginning to be
understood. The study was conducted among a group of adult gamers who were
spending at least six hours per week on this activity. For more than a decade
now, research has demonstrated that action video game players display more
efficient visual attention abilities.
However, this
study found that gamers rely on the caudate-nucleus to a greater degree than
non-gamers. Past research has shown that people who rely on caudate
nucleus-dependent strategies have lower grey matter and functional brain
activity in the hippocampus. This means that people who spend a lot of time
playing video games may have reduced hippocampus integrity, which is associated
with an increased risk of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Because
past research has shown video games as having positive effects on attention, it
is important for future research to confirm that gaming does not have a negative
effect on the hippocampus. Future research will investigate the direct effects
of specific video games on the integrity of the reward system and hippocampus.
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