There are countless studies that warn against excess screens. Previous studies have suggested a link between too much television viewing and anti-social behavior, a tendency to be depressed or even to overeat. A new study focuses on the brain consequences of this bad habit.
Children too riveted in front of the television set would damage their brain by increasing gray matter in the region of the fronto-polar cortex, the most anterior region of the prefrontal cortex. The increase in the volume of gray matter at this location is indeed linked to a decline in verbal intelligence, according to researchers at Tohoku University in the city of Sendai.
The study followed 276 children aged between 5 and 18 who watched TV between 0 and 4 hours per day, for an average of 2 hours per day. MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) showed that children who spent the most time in front of the TV had more gray matter in the fronto-polar cortex. “Children with higher IQs are the ones with the thinnest cortical thickness,” the authors write in the scientific journal Cerebral Cortex, reported by the Daily Mail.
But how can gray matter interfere with cognitive abilities? Japanese scientists explain this phenomenon by comparing children’s gray matter to build. In the same way that one must watch his diet so as not to gain weight and harm his health, the fronto-polar cortex must also be “refined” during childhood to function properly later.
Is TV the enemy of good neuro-cognitive development in children? Difficult to say for sure. While this study suggests a link between the two, there is no evidence that TV directly harms the brain. The researchers do not exclude the possibility that it is the absence of activities such as reading, sports and the lack of social interactions, which stem from excess TV, which disrupts intellectual capacities.
