Does Video Gaming Have Impacts on the Brain: Evidence from a Systematic Review

 Video gaming, the experience of playing electronic games, has shown several benefits for human health. Recently, numerous video gaming studies showed beneficial effects on cognition and the brain. A systematic review of video gaming has been published. However, the previous systematic review has several differences to this systematic review. This systematic review evaluates the beneficial effects of video gaming on neuroplasticity specifically on intervention studies. Literature research was conducted from randomized controlled trials in PubMed and Google Scholar published after 2000. A systematic review was written instead of a meta-analytic review because of variations among participants, video games, and outcomes. Nine scientific articles were eligible for the review. Overall, the eligible articles showed fair quality according to Delphi Criteria. Video gaming affects the brain structure and function depending on how the game is played. The game genres examined were 3D adventure, first-person shooting (FPS), puzzle, rhythm dance, and strategy. The total training durations were 16–90 h. Results of this systematic review demonstrated that video gaming can be beneficial to the brain. However, the beneficial effects vary among video game types.

Keywords: brain, neuroplasticity, video gaming

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1. Introduction

Video gaming refers to the experience of playing electronic games, which vary from action to passive games, presenting a player with physical and mental challenges. The motivation to play video games might derive from the experience of autonomy or competing with others, which can explain why video gaming is pleasurable and addictive [1].

Video games can act as “teachers” depending on the game purpose [2]. Video gaming has varying effects depending on the game genre. For instance, an active video game can improve physical fitness [3,4,5,6], whereas social video games can improve social behavior [7,8,9]. The most interesting results show that playing video games can change cognition and the brain [10,11,12,13].

Earlier studies have demonstrated that playing video games can benefit cognition. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have demonstrated that the experience of video gaming is associated with better cognitive function, specifically in terms of visual attention and short-term memory [14], reaction time [15], and working memory [16]. Additionally, some randomized controlled studies show positive effects of video gaming interventions on cognition [17,18]. Recent meta-analytical studies have also supported the positive effects of video gaming on cognition [10,11,12,13]. These studies demonstrate that playing video games does provide cognitive benefits.

The effects of video gaming intervention are ever more widely discussed among scientists [13]. A review of the results and methodological quality of recently published intervention studies must be done. One systematic review of video gaming and neural correlates has been reported [19]. However, the technique of neuroimaging of the reviewed studies was not specific. This systematic review reviewed only magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in contrast to the previous systematic review to focus on neuroplasticity effect. Neuroplasticity is capability of the brain that accommodates adaptation for learning, memorizing, and recovery purposes [19]. In normal adaptation, the brain is adapting to learn, remember, forget, and repair itself. Recent studies using MRI for brain imaging techniques have demonstrated neuroplasticity effects after an intervention, which include cognitive, exercise, and music training on the grey matter [20,21,22,23,24] and white matter [25,26,27,28,29]. However, the molecular mechanisms of the grey and white matter change remain inconclusive. The proposed mechanisms for the grey matter change are neurogenesis, gliogenesis, synaptogenesis, and angiogenesis, whereas those for white matter change are myelin modeling and formation, fiber organization, and angiogenesis [30]. Recent studies using MRI technique for brain imaging have demonstrated video gaming effects on neuroplasticity. Earlier imaging studies using cross-sectional and longitudinal methods have shown that playing video games affects the brain structure by changing the grey matter [31,32,33], white matter [34,35], and functional connectivity [36,37,38,39]. Additionally, a few intervention studies have demonstrated that playing video games changed brain structure and functions [40,41,42,43].

The earlier review also found a link between neural correlates of video gaming and cognitive function [19]. However, that review used both experimental and correlational studies and included non-healthy participants, which contrasts to this review. The differences between this and the previous review are presented in Table 1. This review assesses only experimental studies conducted of healthy participants. Additionally, the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies merely showed an association between video gaming experiences and the brain, showing direct effects of playing video games in the brain is difficult. Therefore, this systematic review specifically examined intervention studies. This review is more specific as it reviews intervention and MRI studies on healthy participants. The purposes of this systematic review are therefore to evaluate the beneficial effects of video gaming and to assess the methodological quality of recent video gaming intervention studies.