Video games enhance brain activity, decision-making skills: Study

The findings of recent research by Georgia State University researchers suggest that frequent video game players show superior sensorimotor decisionmaking skills and enhanced activity in key regions of the brain as compared to nonplayersThe authors who used functional magnetic resonance imaging FMRI in the study said the findings suggest that video games could be a useful tool for training in perceptual decisionmakingVideo games are played by the overwhelming majority of our youth for more than three hours every week but the beneficial effects on decisionmaking abilities and the brain are not exactly known said lead researcher Mukesh Dhamala associate professor in Georgia States Department of Physics and Astronomy and the universitys Neuroscience InstituteOur work provides some answers on that Dhamala said Video game playing can effectively be used for training for example decisionmaking efficiency training and therapeutic interventions once the relevant brain networks are identifiedDhamala was the adviser for Tim Jordan the lead author of the paper who offered a personal example of how such research could inform the use of video games for training the brain Jordan who received a PhD in physics and astronomy from Georgia State in 2021 had weak vision in one eye as a childAs part of a research study when he was about 5 he was asked to cover his good eye and play video games as a way to strengthen the vision in the weak one Jordan credits video game training with helping him go from legally blind in one eye to building strong capacity for visual processing allowing him to eventually play lacrosse and paintball He is now a postdoctoral researcher at UCLAThe Georgia State research project involved 47 collegeage participants with 28 categorized as regular video game players and 19 as nonplayers The subjects laid inside an FMRI machine with a mirror that allowed them to see a cue immediately followed by a display of moving dotsParticipants were asked to press a button in their right or left hand to indicate the direction the dots were moving or resist pressing either button if there was no directional movement The study found that video game players were faster and more accurate with their responses Analysis of the resulting brain scans found that the differences were correlated with enhanced activity in certain parts of the brainThese results indicate that video game playing potentially enhances several of the subprocesses for sensation perception and mapping to action to improve decisionmaking skills the authors wroteThese findings begin to illuminate how video game playing alters the brain in order to improve task performance and their potential implications for increasing taskspecific activity The study also notes there was no tradeoff between speed and accuracy of response the video game players were better on both measures This lack of speedaccuracy tradeoff would indicate video game playing as a good candidate for cognitive training as it pertains to decisionmaking the authors wroteAlso readIndia announce 15 member womens squad for Commonwealth Games 2022This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever