Research found Video Games may improve children’s cognitive performance

As posted in the NORA blog for Healio,

Dr Bader Chaarani, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Vermont specializes in medical image processing in neurodegenerative diseases.

He highlighted research he and colleagues conducted concerning the cognitive performance of 20,000 U.S. children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.

They compared the performance and brain imaging of children who played video games for at least 21 hours per week, versus children who did not play video games.

They found “the gamers outperformed the non-gamers in both” the working memory and response inhibition tasks.

• The video gamer group had faster reaction times, indicating greater attention and control, than their [non-video game-playing] peers
• The gamers outperformed the non-gamers in both” the working memory and response inhibition tasks.
• The gamers demonstrated that they had more efficient Visual Cortex metabolism (they used less oxygen)

Perhaps not what every parent wants to hear, but it supports the potential for "Real World" benefits of moderate use of video gaming.

Reference;

Association of Video Gaming With Cognitive Performance Among Children; Bader Chaarani, PhD1; Joseph Ortigara, MS1; DeKang Yuan, MS1; et alHannah Loso, PhD1; Alexandra Potter, PhD1; Hugh P. Garavan, PhD1

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The study was published in JAMA Network Open