A Reduction in Video Gaming Time Produced a Decrease in Brain Activity

This study examines whether a decrease in brain development is observable after players have reduced their video gaming time over a period of 1 year. Both video gaming experts and non-experts were recruited, whose resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) data were collected at the beginning and the end of the study. Immediately after the first scan, the participants were instructed to spend no more than 3 h on video gaming weekly for 1 year. The results showed decreased self-reported video gaming skills and decreased amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) in the experts at the end of the study, demonstrating that a reduction in video gaming time over a period of 1 year produced a decrease in brain development. The non-experts served as a control group and had no significant changes. The findings support the adaptive effect of video gaming experience on brain and cognitive development. Introduction Technology has changed the way we live. One of the most prominent changes to the contemporary lifestyle is the use of computers, which are important tools of communication, creativity, and even entertainment. Indeed, video games are becoming increasingly popular across a wide age range worldwide, which was demonstrated by the report that there were approximately 2.2 billion people playing video games worldwide, who spent 3 billion hours in total on video gaming weekly (Kühn et al., 2013). Thus, video games are becoming a major channel through which we learn, under...
Source: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research