The brain cortex in teenagers who play video games excessively tends to be thinner in certain regions, and its surface area is on average smaller.
اضافة اعلان
Video games are among the most widespread activities among teenagers, and scientists have long been interested in studying how they relate to brain development.
The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of the brain, responsible for thinking, speech, and attention, and its thickness and surface area change during adolescence.
Scientists have found that teenagers who spend more time playing video games have, on average, a thinner cerebral cortex and smaller surface area in a number of regions.
However, according to scientists, this doesn't necessarily indicate harm or disorder, since the cerebral cortex naturally thins during early adolescence, after which neural connections are reorganized to become more efficient. This conclusion was reached by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco.
The scientists published, in the journal NeuroImage, an analysis of data from 5,686 participants in the American ABCD project, in which teenagers around 14 years old underwent MRI scans and were asked about their gaming habits. It turned out they played an average of 3.1 hours a day.
The associations varied depending on the type of games. Single-player games were often linked to a smaller surface area in cortical regions associated with speech, communication, and emotional regulation. As for online games, scientists found no statistically significant differences among players who played them, after accounting for other factors. Age-restricted games were often linked to a thinner cerebral cortex in networks related to attention and the processing of social and emotional cues.
The authors stress that this is a statistical association, not evidence of a causal relationship. It's possible that brain characteristics influence game choice in the first place, and the differences observed were small, reflecting normal patterns of development. Scientists will continue following the teenagers to understand which of these factors emerges first.
Resource: Al-Ghad.
