We’re sure many of you who don’t play video games on a regular basis probably think it’s a waste of time, especially if you’re an adult. Although according to a recently published study, those hours you see your husband spending on the couch shooting random opponents in the face in Call of Duty: Ghosts is actually enlarging his brain.
Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Charité University Medicine St. Hedwig-Krankenhaus asked volunteers to play Super Mario 64 for 30 minutes a day over two months. After scanning their brains through an MRI before and after the study, researchers found the volume of their brain increased in the right hippocampus, the right pre-frontal cortex and the cerebellum. These areas of the brain are known to be responsible for memory formation, muscle control, strategic planning and spatial navigation.
As a result of this study, researchers are theorizing playing video games could actually be useful in treating brain disorders. “The presented video game training could therefore be used to counteract known risk factors for mental disease such as smaller hippocampus and prefrontal cortex volume in, for example, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disease,” researchers added to the study’s report.
Filed in . Read more about Brain and Video Games.