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February 15, 2006
Video games protects the brain from cognitive decline!!!
Now this is the kind of study I like to see! Something that proves my dad wrong about me wasting all my time on video games. I was warding off Alzheimer's. ;) Actually it's very interesting that the results on the brain are similar to being bilingual, now if they could remove the foreign language requirement from certain majors that would be cool. That's one area I always had trouble with in school. I just never had the attention span and will to learn another language. It always seemed like so much work for so little return on investment. I never got the practical application of the requirement. I programmed in more than 10 computer languages at the time and it seemed like more than enough knowledge to have to me.
Anyway, very interesting study. Multitasking is good at protecting the brain. Makes sense, use it or lose it. Of course you can ask Dianne about the blocking out of useless outside information while playing games thing. I become so focused on the problem at hand, I lose an awareness of the world around me or as the article puts it "resisting irrelevant impulses". Yeah that what I would call them. ;) In college I'd be playing games and lose entire days without realizing it. More than one occasion I woke up to play a quick game before breakfast and I look up to realize it was dark again and I hadn't left my room yet. Ah the good old days. ;p
Another interesting part of the article is the reappearance of the frontal lobes in the discussion "the elderly lose the ability to power up brain regions, such as the frontal lobe, needed to focus on a task, and to turn down activity in inner brain regions that are most active when a person is in idle or default mode." The elderly may actually lose the ability to turn on the moral part of the brain. Fits into my theories that Republicans and brain damage to the moral part of the brain are related. Older population, inability to think morally, the rise of the radical right, the inability to make the connection between crime and criminals. It all fits. Of course it doesn't help us fix the problem, but at least we know what the problem is. The Republicans have tapped into the brain damaged boomer population and are using them to destroy America. Since it's a permanent condition there is nothing that can be done about it, which explains the Republicans unflinching support no matter what they do.
[via Daily Kos]
Read more over at Globe and Mail.
Posted by ManDrake at February 15, 2006 3:26 PM
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