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Abstract
Playing video games is a common recreational activity of adolescents. Recent research associated frequent video game playing with improvements in cognitive functions. Improvements in cognition have been related to grey matter changes in prefrontal cortex. However, a fine-grained analysis of human brain structure in relation to video gaming is lacking. In magnetic resonance imaging scans of 152 14-year old adolescents, FreeSurfer was used to estimate cortical thickness. Cortical thickness across the whole cortical surface was correlated with self-reported duration of video gaming (hours per week). A robust positive association between cortical thickness and video gaming duration was observed in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left frontal eye fields (FEFs). No regions showed cortical thinning in association with video gaming frequency. DLPFC is the core correlate of executive control and strategic planning which in turn are essential cognitive domains for successful video gaming. The FEFs are a key region involved in visuo-motor integration important for programming and execution of eye movements and allocation of visuo-spatial attention, processes engaged extensively in video games. The results may represent the biological basis of previously reported cognitive improvements due to video game play. Whether or not these results represent a-priori characteristics or consequences of video gaming should be studied in future longitudinal investigations.
Highlights
The rapid growth of video game popularity in adolescents has generated concern among practitioners, parents, scholars and politicians
Cortical thickness differed between scanners (DLPFC: t(150) = 4.56, p,0.001; frontal eye fields (FEFs): t(150) = 5.07, p,0.001); on the GE scanner cortical thickness values were higher compared to Siemens, scanner was entered as a covariate of no interest in the main analysis
When computing the main whole brain analysis to explore brain regions in which cortical thickness varied with hours per week of video gaming, we found that the time playing video games correlated positively with cortical thickness in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in left middle frontal gyrus extending into left superior frontal gyrus (DLPFC 240 40 24, according to [32]; BA 9 and 46, rostral middle frontal according to [33]; total surface area 710 mm2; total grey matter volume 2415 mm3) and left frontal eye fields (FEF, 219 22 51; BA6, superior frontal area; total surface area 592 mm3; total grey matter volume 2089 mm3; [34,35] (Figure 1)
Summary
The rapid growth of video game popularity in adolescents has generated concern among practitioners, parents, scholars and politicians. Detrimental effects have been reported in social domains, namely increases in aggression and reductions of empathy and prosocial behaviour [1,2]. Favourable effects of frequent video game playing have been observed. It has been shown that action video game playing can enhance probabilistic inferences [3], as well as visual skills related to attention, memory and the spatial resolution of vision [4,5,6,7]. Improvements in higher-level cognitive functions such as task switching, working memory and reasoning have been associated with improvements in a strategic video game [8]. Video games have been shown to enhance spatial skills [9] and motor skills, such as endoscopic surgical performance [10,11]
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