if you grew up playing video games like
I did you've probably heard lots of
conflicting information
some say too much gaming will ruin your
vision and rot your brain While others
claim it improves your hand-eye
coordination and can even make you
smarter so what exactly does gaming do
to our brain and our body to find out I
visited doctors and researchers we're
seeing brain activity in different
frequencies tested my hand-eye
coordination against a Pro Gamer you
can't catch up and somehow ended up in a
sub 200 degree cryo chamber
all to answer the question how do video
games affect us
Stakes are higher than ever the industry
is booming Esports have gone mainstream
they're College leagues parents are even
getting video game tutors for their kids
and thanks in part to smartphones and
free games like fortnite gamers are
playing more than ever before
so given that we can play virtually
anywhere at any time how is all this
gaming changing us physically let's
start with the excuse I used to give my
mom when I was trying to get a little
bit more time on the Atari it's making
me a better athlete to find out if
that's actually true I headed to the
sports academy in Thousand Oaks
California where amateur Gamers and
Esports Pros train under the same roof
as traditional athletes
this is Pro Gamer Matt Higginbotham I'm
known online as Acadian between training
and Casual gaming Matt plays 8 to 10
hours a day people say you know it
improves hand-eye coordination it
improves response time kind of what have
you seen in your own life if you only
play League of Legends that's like your
only activity with no physical exercise
in my opinion you're just gonna get out
of shape in terms of positives yeah
maybe it may be cognitive it would
increase the things that you're going to
use in the game reacting to things
quickly making decisions quickly so is
he right let's find out if being an avid
gamer actually makes you sharper we're
going to be taking a bunch of cognitive
tests one after the other now Matt is a
Pro Gamer I am very much not so we're
going to see exactly how our results
break down
the first test is my new arch nemesis
the dynavision board which tests pure
reaction time your job is to hit the
button when it lights up red okay it's
going to move pretty quickly okay so
you're going to want to rely on your
periphery okay I can use either hand
right you can use either this is going
to be a mess I can already tell now
Matt's calm and he's making it look easy
but this is way way harder than it looks
uh am I not seeing one you have down
below yeah there you go
I just threw the whole test
[Music]
it's pretty fun actually
I'm gonna walk you over to the next okay
yeah so let's leave this far behind yeah
I'll see you in hell Dyna board the next
one test what's called cognitive
processing under load it's also a
reaction test but unlike the dynavision
board there's a voice telling you to do
the opposite of what you're actually
supposed to do okay there's going to be
a voice in your headset now that says
stop and go come with some of that voice
keep hitting green my brain
yeah it's tiring right the body gets
fatigued and uh so does the brain that's
crazy the last test measures your
ability to track multiple objects at the
same time we had to keep tabs on certain
spheres as they floated around in a 3D
space kind of like trying to win two
games of three card Monty at the same
time
four seven
[Music]
three and five
six and eight
I got better at it after like eight of
them no they bounced off each other no
no
I totally lost
um my confidence is shaking at this
point moment of truth let's see how I do
I hope you got some good news for me of
course always these tasks are built to
really push your cognitive processing
but but at the same time give you
measurable results and and immediate
feedback Matt outperformed you in the
more complex tasks so as tasks got more
complicated and had a significant amount
of distractions and opportunity for the
brain to start thinking about something
that wasn't primary to the task he
outperformed you pretty significantly at
those tasks if we were to compare both
your scores to a normal population of
which we have data he's in the 98th
percentile and you're probably in the 60
or 70th percentile so are we talking
about self-selection here is is it that
people who are good at this stuff are
playing games or is there proof that
games can actually improve your
cognition in that way no I I think for
sure games can help improve your
cognition playing video games can be
very high speed can create a lot of
chaos create a lot of multiple
environments where you have to make
decisions and all of these are forming
skills in the brain so no I I think in
general just like in every capacity of
human performance we all start with some
baseline based on genetics but the
opportunity to train cognition I think
is really powerful okay so a Pro Gamer
who's 20 years younger than me beat me
at a few cognitive tests I mean of
course he did but what does science have
to say about all this video games is a
hugely broad category um and we know for
sure that the impact of a game has to do
with what you're asked to do so because
of that different games will have
different impacts on on the brain you
know you wouldn't ask what's the impact
of food on your body
um you'd want to know the composition of
the food right um and so the same is
true of video games so
um you know depending on what we would
call the mechanics the Dynamics the
content of individual games that is what
would predict how the games will affect
your brain action games like
Counter-Strike OverWatch and fortnite
are some of the most popular with rumors
these days and green and his colleagues
looked at games like those to find out
what their impact is there are some type
of games action games that have been
linked with positive effects and
perceptual and cognitive skills these
are games that have lots of fast motion
in them lots of objects to track
simultaneously an emphasis on peripheral
processing so items first come at the
edges of the screen the need to make
quick and accurate decisions under time
pressure based on 15 years worth of
studies researchers have found that
action games biggest positive effects
were on perception how our senses
interpret external stimuli like sights
and sounds spatial cognition which helps
you Orient yourself in and navigate 3D
environments and top-down attention the
ability to focus on one object while
ignoring distractions how far that
generalizes I think is a pretty open
question so my expectation is that there
are plenty of people who show pretty
exceptional hand-eye coordination with
the joystick might not be able to catch
a baseball very well right and so it's
certainly the case that um in a
perceptual motor skill development in
one area won't necessarily generalize to
all areas I'm curious about thoughts
that you have about the thresholds
between benefits gained from action
games and where those diminishing
returns might kick in you will get more
learning gain from smaller sessions
spread out over time than one big block
with respect to perceptional and
cognitive skills we've either seen a
positive impact or a null impact we
haven't seen any area that has been
damaged where there is worse performance
so those are the positive effects of
playing action games but what if you
could develop games that specifically
harness those cognitive effects all
right that's exactly what researchers
are attempting at ucsf's neuroscape lab
our goal is to bridge technology and
Neuroscience to improve the function of
your brain the reason we focus on
cognitive control is because we look at
it as a very sort of base of the pyramid
that all other aspects of cognition like
memory a reasoning decision making all
the way up to things like wisdom are
dependent upon it if you can't pay
attention everything crumbles right you
can't build any of the higher order
cognitive abilities they're custom
designing games that can one day be
prescribed as a kind of digital medicine
for patients with conditions like ADHD
so where pharmaceutical medicines
deliver molecular treatments we think of
this medicine as a digital medicine that
delivers experiential treatments the
video game is essentially like our pill
they hook me up with an EEG cap so that
I could see my brain activity in real
time while playing a steering game
called project evoke and we'll see your
brain responding to it and there are
signs it's working so there you go you
got it now so that game is now in the
FDA approval process to become the first
ever prescribable video game what we
have frequently found is that we're able
to get transfer of benefits from game
play to other aspects of attention that
are very different than the game
neuroscape is also experimenting with
virtual reality because VR can utilize
your whole body as a controller and may
well be able to compound the benefits
for things like attention and memory a
lot of data has shown that physical
activity even devoid of cognitive
challenges has positive benefits on your
brain especially the Aging brain so we
ask the question what happens if you you
give physical challenges that are
integrated with cognitive Challenge and
create a sort of integrated approach
will you have even more cognitive
benefits if you're moving your entire
body embodied challenges as opposed to
playing that same game just sitting
there just moving your fingers and we're
testing that right now now despite your
findings and despite the the fact that
you've been able to replicate this and
you're in phase three uh trials there
doesn't seem to be consensus in the
medical community there are a lot of
other scientists who say well no I mean
any any positives that you can derive
from games are kind of mild and
transitory at best how do you respond to
that it's a complicated field and it's
still early days I'm at least cautiously
optimistic based on what we've seen over
the last 10 years that we're really on
to something that's going to be very
positive for people and using video
games as a therapeutic and if these
games are prescribed one day to improve
brain function there are still questions
about what the dosage should be it is
important to make it fun but it is also
critical to think of it as something
that's dosed and played for a limited
time and not interfering with the other
important activities in your life okay
now for the bad news Avid gaming can
lead to injuries I see many people who
have repetitive motion injuries from
gaming extensively you know many gamers
will gain from 8 to 16 hours a day six
or seven days a week so my goal when I'm
talking to them finding out how much
they gain which games that they're
playing and what are their injuries so
the injuries are the following often
finger injuries wrist injuries elbow
injuries shoulder injuries neck injuries
it's the wide gamut of the human body
really Dr Harrison also sees something
he calls Gamer's thumb and this is an
issue whereby someone will have
tendonitis the back of their thumb as
well as on the volar aspect or Palmer
aspect of their thumb so they'll have
pain the back of the thumb and the front
now that I've only seen with Gamers when
they present with that they have really
abused their bodies their thumbs are
really on fire when this bad boy is down
then you got you got a problem oh so I'm
here I'm your patient yes uh I don't
have big problems yet but I want to
prevent problems so let me show you like
let's say five basic stretches so you
want to go down and then bring your
fingers up you feel that and loosen up
your joints as well as for your wrists
to start opening up everything to get
everything moving really nicely in and
out with the thumb right then down this
is one of the fundamental stretches that
every gamer should do console bass
keyboard bass Mouse whatever that is the
thumb you want to have a healthy thumb
and you do them for five to ten minutes
twice a day not difficult I think video
games are are great moderation is the
key if you overdo it then there are
always issues that will be attached to
that look there's no question the gaming
can wear you out some Gamers at the
sports academy even subject themselves
to cryotherapy after long sessions the
jury's still out on its Effectiveness
but some players swear by it so I
decided to give it a try
all right so there's freezing cold gas
it's dry
go through this for two two and a half
three minutes when you come out which I
can only hope is going to be sometime
sometime soon when you come out and your
body starts to warm up again your blood
then starts to recirculate and it goes
back out to your extremities and the
idea being that the circulation feels
amazing when you go to the surgery on
the gene all right that was two and a
half minutes I made it oh man so what
have we learn here other than the fact
that I'm a masochist gaming can be good
for your hand-eye coordination and
perception it can help with Focus
tension maybe even memory just how all
that translates into the real world
though still up for debate we also know
that repetitive gaming can take a toll
on your body
so a little bit of moderation goes a
long way
when it comes to my own experience I've
played games for more than 30 years
never suffered any gaming related
injuries and while I may never know if
gaming helped my brain I do know it
didn't destroy it so take that Mom