"Shooters and other action games may harm the brain, according to new research from the University of Montréal, putting players at greater risk of mental health and neurological problems such as Alzheimer’s, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia.
"In the article “Impact of Videogames on Plasticity of the Hippocampus”, Greg West, an associate professor at UdeM’s psychology department, and his team claim that people who often play action and shooter games, such as Call of Duty, have a reduced amount of grey matter in their hippocampus, an area of the brain that is heavily linked to memory.
The study suggests that this depletion of grey matter might be severe enough to cause significant mental health issues and neurological illnesses. PTSD, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and depression are all more likely with reduced hippocampal grey matter, and so action game players may be at greater risk of such conditions.
The understanding behind the research is that such games may stimulate a different part of the brain - the caudate nucleus, which is part of our reward system for habits and needs - at the cost of development in the hippocampus. While West acknowledges previous studies suggest there are benefits to playing videogames, he argues that these may not outweigh the potential negatives it causes to the hippocampus.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/action-games-mental-health-study
By the way, they found opposite results for more visuospatial games:
"All learners had an increase in hippocampal grey matter after 90 hours with a Mario game."
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My take:
- Other research shows benefits, so as usual, the findings are mixed.
- I didn't dig into the study to examine their methods, so there may be issues there.
- There are many activities that can lead to reduced hippocampal activity/growth. Playing certain types of games is just one of them. Probably, sitting on your ass watching TV is another.
- As usual, researchers are trying to investigate games as a health hazard of some type -- I imagine there is a lot of grant money available to do this. When you search look for problems across a wide number of variables, you will typically find something.
- Hippocampus is just one area of the brain. There are probably compensatory effects elsewhere.
- It's only one type of game, and other types of games have the opposite effect.
So, I wouldn't make too much out of this. Just thought it was kind of funny/interesting.
The jokey part of me wants to say, "I thought it was the other way around -- that stupid people gravitated to shooters" -- but I don't want to offend any intelligent shooters in the crowd. And besides, action games are included here, which I play plenty of.
"In the article “Impact of Videogames on Plasticity of the Hippocampus”, Greg West, an associate professor at UdeM’s psychology department, and his team claim that people who often play action and shooter games, such as Call of Duty, have a reduced amount of grey matter in their hippocampus, an area of the brain that is heavily linked to memory.
The study suggests that this depletion of grey matter might be severe enough to cause significant mental health issues and neurological illnesses. PTSD, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and depression are all more likely with reduced hippocampal grey matter, and so action game players may be at greater risk of such conditions.
The understanding behind the research is that such games may stimulate a different part of the brain - the caudate nucleus, which is part of our reward system for habits and needs - at the cost of development in the hippocampus. While West acknowledges previous studies suggest there are benefits to playing videogames, he argues that these may not outweigh the potential negatives it causes to the hippocampus.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/action-games-mental-health-study
By the way, they found opposite results for more visuospatial games:
"All learners had an increase in hippocampal grey matter after 90 hours with a Mario game."
----
My take:
- Other research shows benefits, so as usual, the findings are mixed.
- I didn't dig into the study to examine their methods, so there may be issues there.
- There are many activities that can lead to reduced hippocampal activity/growth. Playing certain types of games is just one of them. Probably, sitting on your ass watching TV is another.
- As usual, researchers are trying to investigate games as a health hazard of some type -- I imagine there is a lot of grant money available to do this. When you search look for problems across a wide number of variables, you will typically find something.
- Hippocampus is just one area of the brain. There are probably compensatory effects elsewhere.
- It's only one type of game, and other types of games have the opposite effect.
So, I wouldn't make too much out of this. Just thought it was kind of funny/interesting.
The jokey part of me wants to say, "I thought it was the other way around -- that stupid people gravitated to shooters" -- but I don't want to offend any intelligent shooters in the crowd. And besides, action games are included here, which I play plenty of.