A new study coming from the Indiana University Scholl of Medicine in Indianapolis has shown that those who play violent video games experience less activation in the frontal regions of the brain.
The study focused on eleven adult males, with ages between 18 and 29, who had not been exposed to many
violent video games and who were asked to play shooter titles for 10 hours at home for one week.
The control group consisted of another 11 males who had no exposure to violent video games.
The team then used functional magnetic resonance in order to see how their brains were affected and found less activation in the areas of the brain that were linked to cognitive function and to emotional control.
The apparent change in brain function was less visible after another week in which they were not exposed to video games.
Yang Wang, M.D., who is the assistant research professor at the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences inside Indiana University, stated, “For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home.”
He added, “These brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior. These findings indicate that violent video game play has a long-term effect on brain functioning.”
It’s not very clear why the scientists believe that the effects are long term, given that the study only followed them for two weeks and the effects of
playing video games were already declining after seven days.
A number of studies have announced that they found a link between violent video games and a change in behavior but most scientist agree that playing games cannot be correlated in any real way with an increase in aggressive behavior in individuals.
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