Research finds that children who play violent video games or watch violent TV can become violent themselves, but what drives this change? Are they kids simply mimicking what they see on the screen, or could gaming have a more profound effect on their brains, affecting behavior? To explore that question, Dr. Vincent Matthews and his colleagues at Indiana University, who have long studied media violence, looked at what happened in the brain in 28 students who were randomly assigned to play either a violent, first-person shooter game or a non-violent one every day for a week. None of the participants had much previous gaming experience. At the start of the study, researchers used functional MRI to scan brain activity in the participants, all young adult men, while they completed lab-based tasks involving either emotional or non-emotional content. The participants were then scanned again while they repeated the same tasks, after a week of playing the video games. Researchers found that those who played the violent video games showed less activity in areas that involved emotions, attention and inhibition of our impulses. “Behavioral studies have shown an increase in aggressive behavior after violent video games, and what we show is the physiological explanation for what the behavioral studies are showing,” says Matthews. “We’re showing that there are changes in brain function that are likely related to that behavior.” It’s not clear how long-lasting the changes may be. When Matthews brought the participants back after a week of not playing video games, their brain activity had changed again, reverting to more normal reactions, but their brain functions still weren’t quite the same as before they were exposed to the violent games. One task the participants completed while being scanned assessed their response to violent versus non-violent words. The participants were presented with violent words such as hit, harm and kill and non-violent words like run, walk and talk, each in different colors. Participants were asked to identify the color of each word, rather than the word itself, a variation of a common … Continue reading How Playing Violent Video Games May Change the Brain