Guys’ brains change after violent gaming
Posted by staff / December 6, 2011
After playing violent video games for one week, young adult men showed signs of sustained changes in a region of the brain associated with emotional control, a new study shows.
The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.
“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,” says Yang Wang, assistant research professor of radiology and imaging sciences at Indiana University. “The affected brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior.”
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: Indiana University
Perhaps victimless, job-creating, technology-furthering brain changes are better than old-fashioned violence. Let’s not throw out the babies with the bath water.