Is, as almost always, the controversy around the gaming world, even more so in Italy: a study from Canada, set up by the Department of psychology of the Université de Montréal and the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, has found that some action video games would lead to a reduction in brain mass, with a shrinking of the hippocampus. Others, on the contrary, would insteadbenefits.
Video games stimulates our brains?
The study was published by Molecular Psychiatry (Nature) and took in 50 persons with an analysis between the ages of eighteen and thirty. The players were split into three different groups and have played in action titles in both first and third person, as well as some platforming. The experiment has been going on for 12 weeks, with sessions from two to four hours a day for three days a week. The goalwas that every subject he accumulated a total of at least 90 hours of play.
During the period under review, there has been a reduction of brain matter by about 2% in the area of the hippocampus. Although the percentage seems very low, according to Dr. Gregory West, who conducted the research, this is very important data, “perhaps the 2% may seem little, but not if we keep in mind that the time taken in analysis is only three months. Also, we are talking aboutmicrostructures in which every change is important. We emphasize also that the scanners that we use doesn’t have a very high resolution, but they still managed to record a contraction, “said the newspaper La Repubblica.
The study focused on what video games?
The games offered to those who are subjected to the experiment were Fallout 3, Borderlands, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor, Killzone and Counterstrike, besides Resistance, Gears of War, theTomb Raider reboot, GTA V and three episodes of the saga Mario.
To make a difference would be the use of spatial memory, less stimulated in video games more driven, where the user is concerned above all to eliminate the enemy that does not store the paths and the surrounding environment. This, at least, according to Canadian researchers who conducted the study.
Scholars believe that, on the contrary, the games platform conducive to the hippocampus, which even increasesWhile playing Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy.
Professor West explained that you have tested your Nintendo video games because a previous search, conducted in Germany, had already demonstrated positive effects for the user: “I also read other research on behavior that affirm the importance of titles like Civilization. We didn’t have enough means to try them all, our universities are funded by the Government of Canada, not byprivate companies and unless all from Nintendo. “
Video games and passive media
According to researcher West, what has been observed in the hippocampus in front of some action video games would correspond to what happens in our brains when we use the coordinates: the problem is to stop thinking, would lie in the liabilities — that, we talked about it on our pages several times, it’s actually own many other media, never ended up in the eye of the storm as much asvideo games.
The curious part, however, you notice how different the representation of space that our brain has to do in the face of, for example, to open a regular shooter scenarios and to the world of Grand Theft Auto or Fallout. The study, in short, would merit further study to find out the best possible world how accurate is what has emerged from this first sample of 50 people, which would have similar reactions despite the video gamedifferent from each other, in spatial representation, which have been proposed.
«The difference [between the action and as recorded with the Super Mario] for me lies in the cognitive map that we create in us gaming environments» reasons West. «The pressing first-and third-person action video game actually prevents the establishment of this mind map.»
We hope that this issue can be deepened in appropriate locations, both in the positive developments that in thosenegatives that video games would have on the hippocampus.
