(NaturalPath) In a study led by the University of Utah School of Medicine, compulsive video game players have their brains wired a bit differently. Researchers scanned the brains of 200 adolescent boys and found some interesting results. Chronic video game play is associated with hyperconnectivity between several pairs of brain networks.
Some of the differences in the brain scans were the ability to adapt to new information as well as distractibility and poor impulse control. The researchers said that these changes are generally positive, but seem to always come with downsides.
Those with the disorder have hyperconnectivity in the so-called salience network. Overall, the researchers found that videogames made the boys think more efficiently, though more studies would need to be conducted to see if they did better on performance tests.
Having certain regions of the brain so connected that make those video games player so efficient also make them more easily distracted. There is a bit of a chicken or the egg dilemma whether people are rewired with persistent video game use or if individuals wired a certain way are drawn to play video games so much.
For more detailed information, read the full study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151221194124.htm
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/adb.12347/abstract