Share
If you’re a female fan of classic brick-based puzzle game Tetris, and you happen to be looking for a concrete reason to play at every possible opportunity, then a compelling new report from the Mind Research Network (MRN) might be all the justification you need for ‘just one more game’.
Tetris. Annoyingly addictive AND good for the brain. Image: totalAldo/Flickr.
More pointedly, the MRN report’s findings reveal that playing Tetris can create positive change in the human brain, most notably in those areas thought to play a role in critical thinking, language processing, and the planning of co-ordinated movements.
The three-month research study, led by California brain specialist Dr. Richard Haier, focused on adolescent females and used the famously addictive puzzle videogame in order to gauge how playing can affect the energy efficiency of the brain and also the thickness and size of the cortex – a key area of the brain that naturally deteriorates with age.
Using two MRIs to monitor changes in the representative brain images of study participants while they played Tetris, Dr. Haier and his team were able to gather important insights regarding the ongoing understanding of human brain health.
According to the report, those girls utilising their cognitive skills to play Tetris showed improved brain efficiency over control group subjects – consistent with existing studies – while they also gained a thicker cortex, although not in the same brain areas where efficiency occurred.
"We showed that practice on a challenging visuospatial task has an impact on the structure of the cortex," commented study co-investigator Dr. Sherif Karama.
"[This is] in keeping with a growing body of scientific evidence showing that the brain can change with stimulation and is in striking contrast with the pervasive and only-recently outmoded belief that our brain’s structure is fixed," Dr. Karama added.
The full study has been published in the open-access journal BMC Research Notes, and Dr. Haier and the team hope to expand their efforts to include larger and more diverse sample participants in the future.
Note: The 26 adolescent girls, all with strictly limited videogame experience, were chosen for the study as adolescent boys tend to have amassed more game time and may not show detectable brain changes after practice.
Want regular updates from The Tech Herald? Follow us on Twitter.
Interested in a more interactive TTH? Join our Facebook Group.
Interested in a more interactive TTH? Join our Facebook Group Want regular updates from The Tech Herald? Follow us on Twitter
Advertising
Comment on this Story