A brain-boosting video game
In the video game Tetris, players try to pack As many shapes arsenic workable into a small space. According to a new study, that's not all they're doing: Scientists establish a connection between playing Tetris and the size up of part of the brain.
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| Fitting together otherwise shaped blocks in Tetris changes the brain, a new study finds. |
| Physics Humanities |
It sounds like a joke, but the study uses serious scientific discipline. A team of trio researchers from Canada and the United States scanned the brains of 15 adolescent girls, older 12-15, WHO played Tetris. The scans showed that aft 3 months of playacting the block-stacking lame, grey matter in the girls' brains was thicker. (Gray matter is the wrinkly mixture of psyche cells and blood vessels responsible for processing information in the brain.) Part of the thicker gray matter was in a region of the brain near the top of the head. This domain, called the parietal lobe, is believed to be liable for collecting information from the senses.
The study shows that "wi bodily structure is much more dynamic than had been appreciated," says Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine, unity of the three scientists behind the study. Haier says they studied girls' brains because they typically spend little fourth dimension playing video games than boys.
For comparison, the scientists likewise scanned the brains of 11 girls who had not been playing Tetris. They constitute no increase in the thickness of those girls' grey matter—suggesting that predestined parts of the game-playing girls' brains grew because the girls had played the video game.
The researchers didn't stoppage there—they also did real-time brain scans of girls while they were playing Tetris. For those scans, they used a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. An fMRI tracks how blood moves through the brain, and allows scientists to see which brain areas are being used.
These scans showed that in the brains of girls who played Tetris for terzetto months, some parts of the brain were existence used less. The scientists don't know wherefore. Haier suggests that the drop in bodily process may be due to the brain actually working more efficiently than before. "We'Ra non for certain, but we think the genius is learning which areas not to wont," Haier says. "As you learn the game, it becomes many automatic."
The parts of the learning ability that got bigger finished the course of 3 months were not the same parts of the brain that were being used less. This compare hints that larger is not always better: Just because a part of the brain gets bigger doesn't mean that it's working more efficiently.
Understanding how the brain works is not easy, says Haier. The scientists don't know if the brain changes ascribable Tetris will help oneself a person learn current skills OR have better memory. "We know Tetris changes the brain," Haier says. "We get into't know if it's good for you."
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