Structural changes after videogame practice related to a brain network associated with intelligence

• Published in: Intelligence (Norwood) 2012-09, Vol.40 (5), p.479-489
• Main Authors: Colom, Roberto, Quiroga, Mª. Ángeles, Solana, Ana Beatriz, Burgaleta, Miguel, Román, Francisco J., Privado, Jesús, Escorial, Sergio, Martínez, Kenia, Álvarez-Linera, Juan, Alfayate, Eva, García, Felipe, Lepage, Claude, Hernández-Tamames, Juan Antonio, Karama, Sherif
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anatomical correlates of behavior; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Brain plasticity; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Ability; Cognitive Development; Cognitive Tests; Cognitive training; Computer & video games; Control Groups; Correlation; Females; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gray matter; Handedness; Integrity; Intellectual and cognitive abilities; Intelligence; Intelligence Tests; Measures (Individuals); Neurological Organization; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Schemata (Cognition); Tests; Video Games; White matter
• ISSN: 0160-2896; 1873-7935
• DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2012.05.004

Here gray and white matter changes after four weeks of videogame practice were analyzed using optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM), cortical surface and cortical thickness indices, and white matter integrity computed from several projection, commissural, and association tracts relevant to cognition. Beginning with a sample of one hundred young females, twenty right handed participants were recruited for the study and assigned to a practice or a control group carefully matched by their general cognitive ability scores. After the first scan, the practice group played ‘Professor Layton and The Pandora's Box’ 4h per week during four weeks. A second scan was obtained at the end of practice and intelligence was measured again. Image analyses revealed gray and white matter changes in the practice group. Gray matter changes theoretically relevant for intelligence were observed for the practice group mainly in frontal clusters (Brodmann areas 9 and 10) and also in smaller parietal and temporal regions. White matter findings were focused in the hippocampal cingulum and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus. These gray and white matter changes presumably induced by practice did not interact with intelligence tests' scores. ► Brain changes after four weeks of videogame practice were analyzed. ► A pretest-posttest design was applied comparing practice and control groups. ► Gray matter changes were mainly concentrated in frontal areas. ► White matter changes were focused in two tracts. ► No interaction with intelligence was found.