A new University of California study suggests that increased video game playing may be associated with slight variations in teenage brain structure, though researchers emphasise no direct harm has been established.
A new study has found that teenagers who spend more time playing video games tend to have slightly thinner cerebral cortex tissue and a smaller surface area in some parts of the brain, although the researchers say the findings do not show that gaming causes harm. The work, led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, analysed brain scans and gaming questionnaires from 5,686 adolescents, with an average age of about 14, drawn from the large ABCD project.
The study found that adolescents who gamed more overall, averaging about 3.1 hours a day, showed lower cortical surface area and thickness in several regions. But the patterns were not uniform across all kinds of gaming. Single-player games were associated with smaller areas in regions linked to language, communication and emotional regulation, while multiplayer gaming did not show significant differences after other factors were taken into account.
The researchers also reported that games rated for specific age groups were linked with a thinner cortex in parts of the brain involved in attention and social and emotional processing. Even so, they stressed that the results point to correlation rather than cause and effect. It is possible, they said, that existing brain differences influence the kinds of games teenagers choose, rather than gaming itself driving the changes.
The findings fit within a broader scientific picture of adolescence as a period of rapid brain development. Earlier research has shown that the cerebral cortex changes markedly during the teenage years, with shifts in thickness, volume and surface area considered part of normal maturation. A 2014 study also reported links between video game play and increased thickness in certain frontal brain regions, underlining that the relationship between gaming and brain structure is complex and still unsettled.
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