A recently study conducted by neuro scientist Richard Haier has determined that playing video games like Tetris can actually change the shape of your brain...

Playing Tetris actually gives you more brain to work with, says a new study to be published later this week.

The study, funded by Tetris‘ makers and authored by investigators at the Mind Research Network in New Mexico, shows that playing the classic puzzle game had two distinct effects on the brains of research subjects: Some areas in the brain showed greater efficiency (the blue areas in the diagram above), and different areas showed thicker cortexes, which is a sign of more grey matter (red).

This, says the doctors who undertook the study, shows that focusing on a “challenging visuospatial task” like a videogame can actually alter the structure of the brain, not just increase brain activity.
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  • 0
    Play ISDF Sep 3, 09
    Look, I might not know my stuff when it comes to the brain, but while this does sound somewhat possible, isn't using adolescent girls for the tests proving very little? Being adolescent, obviously their still growing and undergoing change. Somehow, I find it interesting, but it really needs more test subjects with greater differences.
    • 0
      Zerpent Sep 3, 09
      It must have been a significant enough change during a certain amount of time for it to have been noticed as more than mere natural growth.

      Still, I'm not really surprised. It's been fairly well established that games can have a pretty good influence on your brain. Like in MMORPGs, where studies have clearly shown that players of said genre exercise their memory and planning skills.

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