Study Shows Some Video Games Can Impact Brain’s Learning & Memory System

Study Shows Some Video Games Can Impact Brain’s Learning & Memory System: In a new study of video games, researchers found that the hippocampal system of the brain is influenced by the navigation strategy that a person employs as well as the genre of the game. The hippocampus is the brain region associated with spatial learning, navigation, and memory and is critical to healthy cognition. The more depleted the hippocampus becomes, the more a person is at risk of developing brain illnesses and diseases ranging from depression to schizophrenia, PTSD and Alzheimer's disease. Players who do not use spatial memory strategies such as landmarks to navigate through a first-person shooting game, but spontaneously rely on response strategies such as counting and patterning to find their way around the game are even more affected. These are the findings of researchers from the University of Montreal and McGill University in Canada, who conducted several studies published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. The researchers first investigated differences in the