[ExI] video games impact on grey matter

[BillK]

On 14 August 2017 at 19:59, Christian Saucier <csaucier at sovacs.com> wrote:
> Thinking is good for the brain!
>
> The difference between a "first-person shooting game" and "3D-platform
> games" used in this study seem very narrow to me.  I would be interested to
> know the specific games that were used.
>
> Maybe another way to view this conclusion is simply this: If you use your
> hippocampus, it will grow grey matter; if you do not use your hippocampus,
> it will lose grey matter.  This should apply not only to the playing of
> video games, but to practically any other types of human action.
>
> This is the summary of that study from nature.com: "The hippocampus is
> critical to healthy cognition, yet results in the current study show that
> action video game players have reduced grey matter within the hippocampus. A
> subsequent randomised longitudinal training experiment demonstrated that
> first-person shooting games reduce grey matter within the hippocampus in
> participants using non-spatial memory strategies. Conversely, participants
> who use hippocampus-dependent spatial strategies showed increased grey
> matter in the hippocampus after training. A control group that trained on
> 3D-platform games displayed growth in either the hippocampus or the
> functionally connected entorhinal cortex. A third study replicated the
> effect of action video game training on grey matter in the hippocampus.
> These results show that video games can be beneficial or detrimental to the
> hippocampal system depending on the navigation strategy that a person
> employs and the genre of the game." --
> http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp2017155a.html
>


They have already found this with studies of London taxi drivers that
had to spend 3 or 4 years memorising the London street map and
planning routes.
(Uber and GPS may end this exercise).

<http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/12/08/acquiring-the-knowledge-changes-the-brains-of-london-cab-drivers/>

This task did increase the size of the hippocampus.
Quote:
She showed that a driver’s hippocampus is most active when they first
plan a route. She found that the hippocampus shrinks back to a normal
size once drivers retire. And she found that acquiring The Knowledge
comes at a cost – taxi drivers find it more difficult to integrate new
routes into their existing maps, and other aspects of their memory
seemed to suffer.
-------

That might mean that brain improvements in one area could cause worse
performance in other areas.


BillK