Video games increase brain efficiency

A recent study, based on monitoring the results of 116 studies, reveals that video games make the areas of the brain responsible for attention and visual skills more efficient, but it warns against falling into the cycle of gaming addiction.

A recent study, conducted by researchers at the Open University of Catalonia in Spain and Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, revealed that video games can change the areas of the brain responsible for attention and visual skills, and make them more efficient.

The study, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience last May, also looked at areas of the brain associated with the reward system and how they relate to video game addiction processes.

The researchers followed the results of 116 scientific studies conducted in this regard, including 22 studies that monitored structural changes that occur in the brain, and 94 studies monitored changes in brain function or behavior, and they found that video games can change how the brain performs, and even its structure, as well. It can affect our interests. 

The results revealed that brain regions involved in attention and reward processes are more efficient in people who play video games, and show that video games can also increase the size and efficiency of brain regions related to spatial memory. As it leads to the expansion of the right hippocampus.

On the other hand, the study indicates that video games can also cause "internet gaming disorder", as they cause functional and structural changes in the neural reward system of those who are addicted. According to the study authors, these neurological changes are similar to those seen in other addiction disorders such as alcoholism, smoking and others.
Despite the controversy surrounding the classification of video game addiction as a mental disorder within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, dozens of research studies have examined the therapeutic benefits of those games, as a study conducted by researchers at the University of California, America, concluded that video games may be able to treat depression, through the practice of a specific type of exercise. Games, especially those that enhance certain brain functions.

In another research, scientists from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, were able to use a version of the game "Tetris" to treat people suffering from "amblyopia", or what is known as lazy eye disease, which leads to poor vision. With the exercises, the player's brain is supposed to learn a better way to coordinate vision between the eyes, helping the weak eye rediscover how to see shapes and improving the eye's sense of the depth of those shapes within the image as a result.


In the same context, a German scientific study published in the Journal of Molecular Psychiatry revealed that Super Mario, one of the most successful and most popular video games on Japanese Nintendo devices, leads to the strengthening of some areas of the brain, especially those responsible for directions, memory training and planning. strategic, in addition to fine motor skills.