Video Games Activate Reward Regions Of Brain In Men More Than Women--so says a new study reported in Science Daily. 11 males and 11 females played a simple video game that was designed especially for the experiment. The game was a kind of space invaders type of game where balls keep coming from the right and you have to click on them (destroying them) before they hit a wall. If you are successful the wall (a vertical line) moves to the right and you "gain territory."
Participants were imaged using fMRI. Based on the Science Daily report, men and women performed similarly on the game but the men showed more activation in the nucleus accumbens, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. The authors interpreted this as showing that the men found gaining territory "more rewarding."
Hard to know what to make of this one until I read the original paper. There are some questions not answered by the Science Daily synopsis. Were the participants gamers or non-gamers, for example? That would make a difference ...
P.S. Jing's study is quoted in the "Related stories" column at right on the Science Daily page.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
