While not news to the hardcore eSports participants and even casual gamers like us who make it a duty to be learning a new game every two weeks. The gamers well known be continuously keeping our skills honed at all times. A recent study of neuroscience suggest something very cool, it suggest that video games may break a long accused myth. The myth that they make us dumb. It’s been something we’ve all heard from our parental figures, elders, and even our peers; “Those games are making you stupid!”. While the jury is still out on figuring the degree at which video games affect your brainpower this study does make some positive claims for those of us that love to game.

The study from The University Bochum in Germany concluded in their work that video gamers performed more adeptly and with increased brain activity in the areas required to learn Prof Dr Boris Suchan, Sabrina Schenk and Robert Lech have logged their findings in the scientific journal Behavioural Brain Research.

The researchers together with 17 volunteers with a self reported play time of 15 hours or more each week did markedly better than the 17 who did not on cognitive tests. With the aid of magnetic resonance imaging the 17 that played more video games also showed more activity in their brains. This evidence suggest that video gamers as it may come as no surprise to hardcore gamers who have to learn a new game every few weeks AND be good at it to keep on their competitive toes.

The gamers were notably better at identifying combinations of cue cards after completing the tasks at hand then filled out surveys and described what they picked up on about the cards. After receiving feedback the gamers tended to pick up on the patterns inherent in the system better than their non-gamer counterparts. “Our study shows that gamers are better in analysing a situation quickly, to generate new knowledge and to categorise facts – especially in situations with high uncertainties,” says first author Sabrina Schenk.

This method of learning appears to show that video games increase activity in the hippocampus, a region of the brain that drives learning. This research may also now pave a pathway to new foundational methods used in the learning new things. Some would suggest it could be vital as well for maintaining healthy brain activity.  As Schenk goes on to say “That is not only important for young people, but also for older people; this is because changes in the hippocampus can lead to a decrease in memory performance. Maybe we can treat that with video games in the future.”

This research is still new and in it’s infancy but we should expect research like this to influence the shape and culture surrounding the games we play. If we are lucky perhaps this can help treat memory loss related diseases such as alzheimer's. Who knows? Perhaps you’ll see video games surge in popularity with a much older crowd once we see benefits from keeping our brains sharp with games that push us mentally. Either way, we are ready for the challenge.

-Dante

Staff Writer at CheckMate Gaming

*Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016643281730390X?via%3Dihub