effect of games on brain part-2

 Is it beneficial to play brain-training games?

A group of Florida State University researchers has stated that people should be sceptical of advertisements that promote an increase in brain performance as a result of brain training games. They claim that science does not back up their claims.

"Our findings and previous studies confirm that there is very little evidence that these types of games can improve your life in a meaningful way," says Wally Boot, an associate professor of psychology and an expert on age-related cognitive decline.

People are increasingly convinced that brain-training apps will protect them from memory loss or cognitive disorders.

Researchers investigated whether playing brain-training games improved players' working memory and, as a result, other cognitive abilities such as reasoning, memory, and processing speed - a process known as "far transfer." This, however, was not the case."It is possible to train people to become very good at tasks that would normally be considered general working memory tasks: memorising 70, 80, or even 100 digits," says Neil Charness, professor of psychology and a leading expert on ageing and cognition.

"However, these skills are often very specific and do not transfer well. What seniors should be concerned about is, if I get really good at crossword puzzles, will that help me remember where I put my keys? "And the answer is most likely no," he adds.

According to Charness, if your goal is to improve cognitive function, aerobic exercise may be beneficial. According to some studies, aerobic activity, rather than mental activity, improves the brain.Memory is improved by playing video games.

In contrast, a study published in Nature discovered that by using a specially designed 3-D video game, cognitive performance in older adults could be improved and some of the negative effects on the brain associated with ageing could be reversed.Scientists at the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) explain that this provides scientific support in the brain fitness arena, which has been criticised for a lack of evidence, that brain training can stimulate meaningful and long-term changes.

After 12 hours of training over a month, study participants aged 60 to 85 years improved their game performance to that of people in their twenties playing the game for the first time. Furthermore, two important cognitive areas were improved: working memory and sustained attention. These abilities were retained six months after they completed their training."The discovery demonstrates how plastic the older brain is," says Dr. Adam Gazzaley, Ph.D., UCSF associate professor of neurology, physiology, and psychiatry and director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center. Dr. Gazzaley finds it encouraging that even minor brain training can reverse some of the age-related brain decline.

A recent study conducted by neurobiologists at the University of California-Irvine (UCI) discovered that playing 3-D video games can also improve memory formation. Participants were divided into two groups: those who played 2-D video games and those who played 3-D video games. The students were given memory tests that engaged the brain's hippocampus after playing the games for 30 minutes per day for two weeks.When compared to the 2-D group, participants in the 3-D group significantly improved their memory test scores. Memory performance in the 3-D group improved by 12%, which is the same amount that memory performance typically declines by between the ages of 45 and 70.

"For starters, 3-D games have a few features that 2-D games do not," says Craig Stark of UCI's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. "There's a lot more spatial information in there for them to investigate. Second, they are far more complicated, with far more information to learn. In any case, we know that this type of learning and memory not only stimulates but also necessitates the hippocampus."Strategy video games in particular have shown promise in improving brain function in older adults and may protect against dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

"If the goal is to improve older adults' cognitive control, reasoning, and higher-order cognitive skills, and to delay dementia and Alzheimer's disease as long as possible," says Chandramallika Basak, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Dallas' Center for Vital Longevity and School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences.Basak, like Charness, believes that when it comes to improving cognitive function, cognitive training should come second to physical activity programmes. Physical fitness programmes have been linked to improved cognition, brain function, and structure.

There is evidence that video games can help with depression and improve memory and mood in adults with mild cognitive impairment.

The effect of video games on the brain is a new area of study that will be investigated further. We may have only scratched the surface of the potential that video games have for improving cognitive ability and preventing cognitive disorders.

The Effects of Childhood Trauma on the Brain

It is not news that people who were abused as children are more likely to suffer from clinical depression, anxiety, and a higher risk of suicide. However, researchers have recently begun to uncover what happens in the brain following this type of trauma.According to data from the United States Department of Health and Human Services' Children's Bureau, there was a 3.8 percent increase in reported child abuse cases in the country between 2011 and 2015. This equates to 683,000 cases of child abuse in the United States alone in 2015.

According to research, this type of childhood trauma leaves deep scars, leading to issues such as post-traumatic stress disorderTrusted Source, depression, anxiety, and substance abuseTrusted Source.

A team from the McGill Group for Suicide Studies at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University in Montreal, Canada, is now attempting to figure out how a history of abuse can affect key brain mechanisms, thereby affecting mental health.Dr. Pierre-Eric Lutz and colleagues discovered that in adults who experienced severe abuse as children, neural connections in an area of the brain associated with emotion regulation, attention, and a variety of other cognitive processes are severely impaired.