Video games rewire the human brain

Moms, this might be tough to hear: your son playing hours of video games won't necessarily turn his brain to mush.

In fact, playing action video games rewires how the brain steers hand-eye coordination.

When controlling objects with a joystick, experienced video game players don't use the side of their brain, where visual information guides muscle movement for most people, but employ the front of their brain normally involved in higher-level decision making, Italian researchers report in Cortex.

Using video games to reroute brain cells could help Alzheimer's patients rely on different parts of their brains to move around and pick up objects.

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In the study, 26 young men used joysticks to move a cursor while they stared in another direction. Half of the twenty-somethings were experienced video gamers — who had played at least four hours of video games per week for the last three years — and the other half were not. Both groups trained on the console until they were equally proficient in accuracy and movement time.

Researchers watched their brains light up under an fMRI machine while completing tasks such as looking to the right while moving an object to the left.

The experienced video gamers relied on the pre-frontal cortex, a brain region known for personality and decision-making, when they performed the tasks. The novices relied on the parietal cortex, the region typically involved in hand-eye coordination.

Earlier in September, University of Rochester cognitive scientists found that practicing fast-paced video games helps the brain make decisions quicker.

Researchers asked 18- to 25-year-old males, all inexperienced video gamers, to either play a slow-paced game ("The Sims 2") or a fast-paced game (either "Call of Duty 2" or "Unreal Tournament").

The young men who played the fast, action-packed games answered problem-solving questions 25 percent faster, the researchers reported in Current Biology.

They suggest the quick decision-making skills could be useful for surgeons or soldiers.

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