WEB DESK, July 14(ABC): A new study reveals that people who play video games are better at making decisions and have stronger brain activity.
Researchers at Georgia State University used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) to analyse brain activity in the 47 participants, 28 being regular video gamers.
“Video game playing can effectively be used for training — for example, decision-making efficiency training and therapeutic interventions — once the relevant brain networks are identified,” said lead researcher Mukesh Dhamala in a university press release.
Participants were asked to press a button indicating the direction the dots were moving or resist pressing if there wasn’t any movement.
Brain scans found that regular video game players had stronger brain activity in some parts of the brain. Video gamers were also faster and more accurate with their answers than non-players.
“These results indicate that video game playing potentially enhances several of the subprocesses for sensation, perception and mapping to action to improve decision-making skills,” the authors wrote.
“These findings begin to illuminate how video game playing alters the brain in order to improve task performance and their potential implications for increasing task-specific activity.”