Researchers at the University of Montreal in Canada have just revealed that playing too many shooting games could damage the brain and may even increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The study involved 51 men and 46 women who were asked to play popular shooting games like Call of Duty, Killzone, and Borderlands 2 for 90 hours, as well as non-violent games such as Super Mario.
The research was led by Dr. Greg West, who stated: “Video games have been shown to benefit certain cognitive systems in the brain, mainly related to visual attention and short-term memory. But there is also behavioral evidence that there could be a cost to that, in terms of the impact on the hippocampus. That is why we decided to conduct a full neuroimaging study, scanning the brains of habitual action video game players and comparing them with non-players, and what we saw was less gray matter in the hippocampus of habitual players.”
The researchers said that players who tended to orient themselves in the video games using landmarks instead of remembering directions would benefit from playing, but these were in the minority. The results were published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
This does not contradict what previous studies have announced regarding the benefits of video games, such as an increase in brain volume or improvements in visuomotor coordination when driving; several British scientists warned against drawing firm conclusions from the study, highlighting the small number of participants.
Nevertheless, the message is clear: you should play and enjoy video games but with moderation. Always.
Official site: UdeMNouvelles
