Impact of video games on plasticity of the hippocampus

West, Greg L.; Konishi, Kyoko; Diarra, Moussa; Benady-Chorney, Jessica; Drisdelle, Brandi Lee; Dahmani, Louisa; Sodums, Devin J.; Leporé, Franco; Jolicœur, Pierre; Bohbot, Véronique D.

doi:10.1038/mp.2017.155

Cited by 100 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Such individual‐level variety has already been shown to impact the outcome of game play. For example, West and collaborators found differential impact of action video game training on the hippocampus depending on the extent to which individuals adopted spatial or nonspatial strategies for navigation …”

Section: Changes In Games and Gamersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, West and collaborators 74 found differential impact of action video game training on the hippocampus depending on the extent to which individuals adopted spatial or nonspatial strategies for navigation. 74 All of the studies mentioned in the above section are part of a young and promising effort to better understand the impact that playing video games has on the brain. However, most of the evidence is correlational in nature and, although hypotheses are being refined, more studies are needed in order to confirm them.…”

Section: Changes In Games and Gamersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A new look at the cognitive neuroscience of video game play

Dale

Joessel

Bavelier

et al. 2020

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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A growing body of literature has investigated the effects of playing video games on brain function and behavior. One key takeaway from this literature has been that not all entertainment video games are created equal with respect to their effects on cognitive functioning. The majority of the research to date has contrasted the cognitive impact of playing first‐ or third‐person shooter games (together dubbed “action video games”) against the effects of playing other game types. Indeed, when the research began in the late 1990s, action video games placed a load upon the perceptual, attentional, and cognitive systems in a manner not seen in other video games. However, the video game industry has shifted dramatically over the intervening years. In particular, first‐ and third‐person shooter games are no longer unique in the extent to which they load upon cognitive abilities. Instead, a host of other game genres appear to place similar degrees of load upon these systems. This state of affairs calls for a paradigm shift in the way that the cognitive neuroscience field examines the impact of video game play on cognitive skills and their neural mediators—a shift that is only just now slowly occurring.

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Section: Changes In Games and Gamersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Changes In Games and Gamersmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new look at the cognitive neuroscience of video game play

Dale

Joessel

Bavelier

et al. 2020

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Before and after the training procedure the training participants underwent the so-called tunnel task to assess navigation preferences 3, 10 . This task was used, since previous reports on video game plasticity showed differences with navigation strategy 5 . Participants saw a sparse visual flow, at the end of the visual flow they had to indicate the direction where the starting position was.…”

Section: Tunnel Taskmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within the present study, we set out to demonstrate that the brain plasticity effects observed in HC [3][4][5] , as well as in DLPFC 3 are elicited by the training of spatial processing within a 3D environment and are not present in a 2D game in which spatial processing is limited. To test this hypothesis, we examined brain plasticity changes after two months of daily video gaming training with the 3D platformer Super Mario 64 and compared it to changes elicited after the same amount of game play in a 2D side-scroller version Super Mario Bros.…”

mentioning

confidence: 93%

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3-D navigation – A core driver of brain plasticity in video game interventions

Kühn

Becker

Gallinat

2018

Preprint

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Recent evidence has repeatedly shown that 3D platform video game training leads to substantial brain structural plasticity in hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. However, a great disadvantage of using complex video game interventions is the difficulty to attribute the observed effects to specific game mechanics.In order to address this caveat, we conducted a longitudinal training study in which 40 participants were randomly assigned to train with a 3D platformer game or a 2D platformer game. The main difference between the two games lies within their affordance for spatial exploration. After a training phase of two months, we observed extended brain structural increases in the 3D in comparison to the 2D condition in bilateral prefrontal areas, hippocampus/ entorhinal cortex as well as precuneus and the temporal lobe. In the reverse contrast an increase in bilateral caudate nucleus was observed.The results demonstrate a crucial role of 3D spatial navigation for widespread brain plasticity effects within a two-months training setup. Given the vast complexity of video games, spatial navigation seems to play an outstanding role in structural plasticity. Since prefrontal, temporal and hippocampal volume deficits are prominent risk factors for several psychiatric disorders, daily navigation habits (outdoor movement, using GPS devices etc.) have to be considered in future mental disorders prevention research.211words

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Negative correlation between grey matter in the hippocampus and caudate nucleus in healthy aging

Sodums

Bohbot

2020

Hippocampus

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Neurobiological changes that occur with aging include a reduction in function and volume of the hippocampus. These changes were associated with corresponding memory deficits in navigation tasks. However, navigation can involve different strategies that are dependent on the hippocampus and caudate nucleus. The proportion of people using hippocampus‐dependent spatial strategies decreases across the lifespan. As such, the decrease in spatial strategies, and corresponding increase in caudate nucleus‐dependent response strategies with age, may play a role in the observed neurobiological changes in the hippocampus. Furthermore, we previously showed a negative correlation between grey matter in the hippocampus and caudate nucleus/striatum in mice, young adults, and in individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. As such, we hypothesized that this negative relationship between the two structures would be present during normal aging. The aim of the current study was to investigate this gap in the literature by studying the relationship between grey matter in the hippocampus and caudate nucleus of the striatum, in relation to each other and to navigation strategies, during healthy aging. Healthy older adults (N = 39) were tested on the Concurrent Spatial Discrimination Learning Task (CSDLT), a virtual radial task that dissociates between spatial and response strategies. A regression of strategies against structural MRIs showed for the first time in older adults that the response strategy was associated with higher amounts of grey matter in the caudate nucleus. As expected, the spatial strategy correlated with grey matter in the hippocampus, which was negatively correlated with grey matter in the caudate nucleus. Interestingly, a sex difference emerged showing that among older adult response learners, women have the least amount of grey matter in the hippocampus, which is a known risk for Alzheimer's disease. This difference was absent among spatial learners. These results are discussed in the context of the putative protective role of spatial memory against grey matter loss in the hippocampus, especially in women.

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Impact of video games on plasticity of the hippocampus

Cited by 100 publications

References 53 publications

A new look at the cognitive neuroscience of video game play

A new look at the cognitive neuroscience of video game play

3-D navigation – A core driver of brain plasticity in video game interventions

Negative correlation between grey matter in the hippocampus and caudate nucleus in healthy aging

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