The next time you bitch about your teenager because he’s still glued to his video game console, expect him to say, “But I’m training my brain here …”. And he won’t be really wrong. Indeed, researchers from the Max Planck Institute (a German federal institute that works on the development of science) come from publish a study which shows that the brain reacts like a muscle and that when playing video games regularly, it develops.
To reach these conclusions, the German researchers put a controller in the hands of 23 guinea pigs and installed them for 30 minutes every day for two months in front of a video game classic (Super Mario 64). In front of them, a group of 23 other guinea pigs were content to be spectators but did not play. For the researchers, the results measured using an MRI are unequivocal: they have made it possible to observe the growth of the areas responsible for hand motricity, those linked to navigation in space, to strategic planning. and the formation of memory in the team of players. Better still: people who were not only guinea pigs but who showed a real desire to play benefited from an even greater development of their brain.
Now that they have demonstrated the undeniable benefits of video games on the brain, the researchers will continue their research to see if this practice can also reduce certain neurological damage to the brain, in particular in the context of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.
