Gamers brains ARE changed by video games (but it’s not all bad news)

Do you have a big or little gamer at home?

Ever since games consoles became a fixture in modern homes, various claims have been made about their possible effect on the human brain. Over the years, psychologists and health researchers have examined how gaming shapes our brain,  behaviour, and even our happiness levels. Once strictly the domain of children and teens, the average age of gamers gradually increased as video games became increasingly popular with adults. In fact, the average gamer age was estimated to be 35 in 2016. Changing technology has also meant that, although many dedicated gaming enthusiasts continue to play on desktop computers or consoles, a new breed of casual gamers has emerged who play on smartphones and tablets throughout the day. Research to date has suggested that playing video games can change the brain regions responsible for attention and visual-spatial skills and make them more efficient. Psychologists have also explored the regions of the brain associated with rewards, and how these are related to video game addiction. Marc Palaus, a researcher at the University of Catalonia in Barcelona, says that the potential effects of gaming has caused divided opinion over the years:

 "Games have sometimes been praised or demonised, often without real data backing up those claims. Moreover, gaming is a popular activity, so everyone seems to have strong opinions on the topic."

Palaus and his colleagues recently set out to see if any trends had emerged from the research to date concerning how video games affect the structure and activity of our brains. Their findings, published in the Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal, collected results from 116 scientific studies, 22 of which looked at structural changes in the brain and 100 of which looked at changes in brain functionality and/or behaviour. The studies show that playing video games can change how our brains perform, and even their structure. For example, playing video games affects our attention, and some studies found that gamers show improvements in several types of attention, such as sustained attention or selective attention. The brain regions involved in attention are also more efficient in gamers and require less activation to sustain attention on demanding tasks. Palaus and co also found evidence that video games can increase the size and efficiency of brain regions related to visuospatial skills. For example, the right hippocampus (the memory and spatial part of the brain) was enlarged in both long-term gamers and volunteers following a video game training programme. All good news then? Unfortunately not; Palaus found that video games can also be addictive, leading to a potential diagnosis of 'internet gaming disorder'. Researchers have found functional and structural changes in the brain's neural reward system in gaming addicts - essentially the same neural changes seen in other types of addictive disorders. So, what do all these brain changes mean for gamers old and young? Palaus says it's a complex issue:

"We focused on how the brain reacts to video game exposure, but these effects do not always translate to real-life changes. As video games are still quite new, the research into their effects is still in its infancy. For example, we are still working out what aspects of games affect which brain regions and how. It's likely that video games have both positive and negative aspects - like the risk of addiction, and it is essential we embrace this complexity."

Hmm, anyone up for an old-fashioned game of Space Invaders then?