Big Brains for Video Games

[Ignis]

Psychologists say they can predict how well you'll do on a video game by looking at the size of just three little structures inside your brain. If those structures are bigger, you'll probably catch on more quickly and do better.

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Past research has shown that expert gamers tend to outperform novices on basic measures of attention and perception. Some studies have suggested that video-game training can help novices bridge the gap - while others indicated that the novices couldn't catch up after more than 20 hours of training.

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Then each subject received 20 hours of training to play a video game specifically created for research purposes, called Space Fortress. It's basically an Asteroids-type arcade game, in which the object is to knock down and destroy an enemy fortress while dodging space mines. However, the game has lots of extra twists that require close attention. Some of the players were told to focus exclusively on running up a high score, while others were told to shift their priorities between several goals.




The result? The subjects who had more volume in an area called the nucleus accumbens did significantly better in the early stages of training. Meanwhile, those who were well-endowed in different areas of the striatum, known as the caudate nucleus and putamen, handled the shifting strategies better.

-- Story: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/01/20/2179437.aspx

You can also see the original study in Oxford's Cereberal Cortex journal:
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/

So next frag you get, please take the time to remind the pwnt of your bigger brain. :D