Study Suggests Violent Video Games Cause Adverse Changes in the Brain

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.. Study Suggests Violent Video Games Cause Adverse Changes in the Brain

Source: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021202-045734-4004r

 

CHICAGO, U.S.A., December 2, 2002: Hours of playing violent video games can

affect the way the brain works on a cellular level, causing misfiring of

signals between nerve cells or slowing brain activity, researchers have

discovered. The adverse effects are most apparent among teens that are

diagnosed with a condition called disruptive behavior disorder or DBD.

These kids, according to Dr. Vincent P. Mathews of the University of

Indiana Medical School in Indianapolis, are the ones most likely to "act

out by harming animals or property or fighting with other kids." When he

used a high tech scanning device called functional magnetic resonance

imaging to track brain function in adolescents with DBD, he discovered

"less activity in the frontal lobes," the area of the brain that controls

emotions and impulses as well as attention span. Moreover when the DBD kids

were exposed to violent video games, "there was even less activity,"

Mathews said. The study suggests repeated exposure to the violent video

games is "desensitizing the brain ... the result is that the child can no

longer understand the real effect of violence," said Dr. Carol Rumach,

professor of radiology and pediatrics at the University of Colorado School

of Medicine in Denver, who was not involved in the study. Even normal teens

who said they frequently watched violent television and movies as well as

regularly playing violent games had decreased activity when exposed to the

violent video, Mathews said. Moreover, the brain changes were most apparent

among "heavy users, meaning those who played for several hours every day,"

he said.

 

 

 

 

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