Video game sales keep increasing year after year. In 2016, the video game industry sold more than 24.5 billion games (in 2015 it was 23.2 billion). Among them, the action and adventure genres take the highest sales percentages, with games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto or Battlefield.
And it is that video games represent a very popular form of entertainment among all audiences. Millions of people play video games every day , with the average gamer being an adult over 30 years of age. For the youngest, parents believe that video games have a positive influence on the lives of their children. Is that so?
Is there consensus in the scientific community?
A team of scientists from the Open University of Catalonia (Spain) and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston (USA) has carried out a systematic analysis of 116 different scientific studies regarding the influence of video games on our behavior and our brain and collected by the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
The results of the studies indicate that playing video games not only changes the functioning of our brain, but also its structure , since changes occur in many regions of the brain.
Video games improve attention
Studies included in the review show that gamers show improvements in various types of attention, including sustained and selective attention. Additionally, brain regions that play a key role in attention are more efficient in people who play video games compared to non-gamers, and require less activation to stay focused on demanding tasks.
Video games increase brain size
Scientific evidence also shows that playing video games increases the size and performance of parts of the brain responsible for visuospatial skills – the ability to mentally represent, analyze, and manipulate objects. Specifically, the right hippocampus.
Video games can be addicting
On the downside, video games can be addictive. In game addicts, there are functional and structural alterations in the neural reward system – structures associated with pleasure, learning and motivation. But, as the study authors put it, “these effects do not always translate into changes in real life.”
“Video games are likely to have positive (attentional, visual and motor) and negative (addiction risk) aspects, and it is essential that we accept this complexity,” continues Palaus.
3D videogames
Other study published in the journal Nature and developed by scientists from the University of California in San Francisco (USA) found that the use of the 3-D video game designed specifically for the study improved cognitive performance in older adults and reversed some of adverse effects on the brain associated with aging.
“This finding is a powerful example of brain plasticity. It is encouraging that even a little brain training can reverse some of the brain decline that occurs with age,” explains Adam Gazzaley, leader of the work.
In short, the effect of video games on the brain is a new field of research that needs to be explored further. We are likely still scratching the surface of its potential as a tool for enhancing cognitive ability and preventing cognitive disorders.
Referencia: Neural Basis of Video Gaming: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00248. 2017
Training the older brain in 3-D: Video game enhances cognitive control. University of California San Francisco. 2013
