 Fourteen-year-olds who were frequent video gamers had more gray matter in the rewards center of the brain than peers who didn't play video games as much -- suggesting that gaming may be correlated to changes in the brain much as addictions are.European scientists reported the discovery Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry . Twenty-four girls and 52 boys were frequent gamers who played at least nine hours of video games each week. They couldn't determine if the frequent gamers' brains grew larger as a result of playing video games or if those kids were attracted to gaming because that part of their brain was enlarged in the first place; scientists will need to measure the effects of video gaming on structures in the brain over time to figure that out.But either way, discovering the link between brain structure and video games could help researchers understand the role of the brain in addictive behaviors, they wrote.
– This is your brain on videogames: The brains of hardcore gamers are wired differently than those who rarely play video games, according to a new study. Researchers who scanned the brains of more than 150 14-year-olds found that the brain's "reward hub"—which plays a role in addiction—was bigger in frequent gamers, as it is in gambling addicts, the Los Angeles Times reports. The researchers couldn't determine whether gaming changed the brain, or whether having a certain brain structure made people likelier to enjoy gaming. The results are "really provocative, because this is a central hub in the brain's motivational system and dopamine pathway," a researcher at Cambridge's department of experimental psychology tells Reuters. "The burning question is whether the structural difference is a change caused by the frequent game play, or whether individual differences in this system naturally dispose some people to more excessive play," he says. "For teenagers, parents, and clinicians to make sense of this finding, we need research monitoring brain structure over time."