Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Dundee on August 09, 2017, 11:09:43 PM
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From NPR and the for what it's worth folder
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/09/542215646/video-games-may-affect-the-brain-differently-depending-on-what-you-play (http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/09/542215646/video-games-may-affect-the-brain-differently-depending-on-what-you-play)
People who played action video games that involve first-person shooters, such as Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, experienced shrinkage in a brain region called the hippocampus, according to a study published Tuesday in Molecular Psychiatry. That part of the brain is associated with spatial navigation, stress regulation and memory. Playing Super Mario games, in which the noble plumber strives to rescue a princess, had the opposite effect on the hippocampus, causing growth in it.
Scientists have done dozens of studies looking to see if playing video games affects people's health and behavior. There's some evidence they may improve people's visual short-term memory and eye-hand coordination. But researchers keep looking for negative consequences, too.
These researchers first asked 33 participants how often they had played video games in the past year. They scanned people's brains using MRIs, and found that the action video game players, who reported spending an average of 19 hours playing action video games each week, had less gray matter in the hippocampus than non-video game players. The difference was statistically significant.
Then the researchers asked 43 other people who don't usually play video games to spend 90 hours over about 10 weeks playing either action video games or Super Mario games in a controlled setting.
People in the group that played action video games lost gray matter in the hippocampus, according to Gregory West, the study's lead author and an associate professor of psychology at the University of Montreal. And people who played Super Mario games gained gray matter in the hippocampus.
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"While we train up this one system, this other system is potentially being neglected and potentially showing signs of atrophy," West says.
Simone Kuhn, a professor of neural plasticity at the University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, says people who play action video games shouldn't be too concerned.
"I would never interpret this finding as a big warning against action video games," she says. Why did action video games seem to shrink the hippocampus, while a different type of game seem to have caused it to grow? West and his colleagues have some ideas.
The way that each type of video game is designed could play a role, West says.
"In the majority of action video games, there's an onscreen GPS overlaid on the screen," West says. "There's also wayfinding markers overlaid over the environment, and we know from past studies that when people are encouraged to navigate using these cues, really, they're not using their hippocampal memory system to navigate."
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Instead, they're using the caudate nucleus, which is part of the brain's reward system.
"It's kind of like your brain's autopilot, you could think of it that way," West says.
"It could be the case that these action video games are encouraging people to favor this reward system over their hippocampal memory system. And then it's become the use-it-or-lose-it type scenario."
He hopes future research can determine if there's a relationship between the changes he and his colleagues observed and the number of hours a person spends each week playing video games, as well as the extent of the increase or decrease in size of the hippocampus.
And for the 1 in 10 Americans who consider themselves gamers, West has some advice about which games to choose.
"If I had to recommend a type of video game to someone, it would be a 3-D platform or logic puzzle game. The evidence is clear at this point that these games can be beneficial for the brain," West says.
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Hope that this isnt true...already have a severe case of "Old Timers" going on. Pretty sure that my MS would possibly double the effect. Nah, aint worried...already addicted now and the withdraws could be worse :x
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It's relatively easy to play AH in a way that the effects to the hippocampus void each other. Flying a fighter can be compared to a FPS game, while flying a bomber or driving a vehicle using the outside view can be considered somewhat similar to playing Mario 3D.
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Any study that only samples 33 people isn't worth considering, honestly. When they sample 1,000 or even 10,000 perhaps I will consider the results. With "1 in 10" considering themselves gamers, it should be hard to find the people. Just the money to do it.
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Social science tends to be weak on the science part. This is just a smear on games with guns.
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Social science tends to be weak on the science part. This is just a smear on games with guns.
In such cases yes, its a bit hard to isolate a single factor and study its effect on humans. but i would not say its a smear against games with guns from the researchers, after all they say "I would never interpret this finding as a big warning against action video games,"
The studies is too small to be statistically significant but the findings should lead to more research on the subject. Our brain adopt itself to pretty much everything we do so video games should not be an exception.
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Biased source, no doubt with a preset objective. Puny sample size and they likely have a serious problem between causation and correlation definitions.
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Don't care what any study says video games literally got me a job.
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Social science tends to be weak on the science part. This is just a smear on games with guns.
really like how FLS always comes through with a short and rather accurate post. like the pin hole on a dart board, it does not take much to hit the bulls-eye.
Me on the other hand would reply like, Its garbage like this that clogs up our news channels and education system. this self profiting research should be labeled as propaganda and not science. a darn shame people twist this crap into their reality and a travesty it is projected on others.
:D
:salute
:joystick:
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really like how FLS always comes through with a short and rather accurate post. like the pin hole on a dart board, it does not take much to hit the bulls-eye.
Me on the other hand would reply like, Its garbage like this that clogs up our news channels and education system. this self profiting research should be labeled as propaganda and not science. a darn shame people twist this crap into their reality and a travesty it is projected on others.
:D
:salute
:joystick:
This :aok
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I did a study of 1 participant... me :D
Playing AH and other video games has definitly improved
my shot term to long term memory (I lost it after 2 strokes)
I'm not where I was 10 or 11 yrs ago but its all the proof I need
:aok
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Don't care what any study says video games literally got me a job.
ME TOO! :)
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Hehe, like they needed to study that.
Get outside! :aok
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Reading up on 'losing grey matter' would seem to indicate the above study is bull-dodo.
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In such cases yes, its a bit hard to isolate a single factor and study its effect on humans. but i would not say its a smear against games with guns from the researchers, after all they say "I would never interpret this finding as a big warning against action video games,"
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That's just CYA in case someone does a real study or wants to sue them. Think about how this message gets shortened as it's passed along on social media. The take away is Call of Duty bad, Mario Brothers good.
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lets see what the headline is. The social sciences love to get a new term out there, really describe something well. The trick is to describe it so it appears to be truth. of course, it would be a false theory if proven wrong, although they always have human variability as a excuse. hence definitions and terms that float and overlap like a cloud. Thankfully we all operate on a similar machine and our behavior and reality are rather similar, allowing this "science" function.
Also, the point of what will seep out of this paper to gather in the collective mind, probably the headline. What's the headline? That's the agenda and money maker. Oh look, just like most "science", the trusted "scientists" opinion is put at the top of the label, not facts or truth. just a haphazard headline to make money and pay some bills. I really don't want to fund more research Mr. West. Id like to see you go out and get a real job, pay some taxes that fund your university ya know. thanks.
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Garbage
Red wine is bad for you
Red wine is good for you
Another load of rich people justifying their funding
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I want a government fund and do a study on whether government funding is a good or bad idea
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Exactly
Climbing trees is a threat to your health as well and riding motorcycles :old:
I have stopped watching TV and any news items, i am old and stupid enough now to realise i am a retard :)
I thank you :salute
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No one stop to think this same issue with your hippocampus degrading can also be attributed to using your smart phone to navigate for you?
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Satnavs and autocorrect are the devil :old:
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Everyone's brain is different and other parts of the brain may be increasing in activity as other parts are decreasing.
I myself have had problems in the past with poor graphics and am more susceptible than others to rapid screen movement. AH is a gem for me as the game delivers a realistic view.
I have avoided playing too much WOT as I will actually get a headache after a few hours due to the rapid screen movement. AH has never had that effect on me after too many hours of playing (says the wife ack).