NRSC 2110 Blog

Last week I returned home from running some errands to find my husband on his laptop playing an action packed video game while the kids are sitting on the floor playing games on the Wii. I want to let them relax but I'm worried they are all killing brain cells with these mindless games.

Maybe, I worry too much? The article Children Wired: For Better or Worse found in the September 9, 2010 issue of Neuron magazine describes some benefits to playing action-packed video games. This is good because in this highly technological world we live in I'd be fighting a losing battle in my home.

Games that showed the highest benefits were full of action and were multidimensional. These games also pull the player in emotionally. It is important to note that studies were conducted with a young adults and not children because of the violence in some of the video games. Some enhancements have been found in vision, attention, cognition, and motor control. The medical community and healthcare professionals are seeing benefits in gaming for patients also. Some research being done shows people with amblyopia (a developmental deficit of vision) and those with attention issues are benefitting from playing video games.

For the younger kids, preschool programming showed some cognitive benefits, in particular an increase in the vocabulary of preschoolers when they view shows like Dora the Explorer. For obvious reasons shows like Teletubies actually prove to reduce language skills. Preschool programs that elicit responses, labels objects, and models proper language in addition to modeling social skills benefit children. However, the new baby/infant videos do not seem to have the same types of benefits. Babies benefit from watching their parents interact in the world. This is not something that can be gained from a video or TV show.

It may be that there is a link in the social skills being taught in preschool programming and the high intensity emotional component of action packed video games that leads to the cognitive benefits that are being observed in these studies. Educational computer games incorporate repetition and interaction as a way of teaching "educational" information but do not have an emotional component. Therefore educational computer programs do not seem to have the same benefits as the emotionally charged video games.

Until now the world of education and the world of behavioral science has studied technology. PET scans and fMRI are allowing neuroscience to share in this new area of research. These new brain-imaging techniques are allowing for real time studies of the brain. This is beneficial to studying the effects gaming has on the brain. Studies are finding that video games are affecting reward pathways. Neuroscience will be able to shed light on the effects these games are having on executive function and control of attention, as well as, reward pathways. Hopefully new studies will emerge that will incorporate neuroscience and technology so educational programs can be developed that will illicit the same learning benefits as action packed video. Wouldn't it be cool if learning history and math on the computer were just as fun (and beneficial) as playing one of those action packed video games?!

Those of us in dating in high school in the late 80′s can attest to the stinging truth revealed in Def Leppard's song, "Love Bites" shortly after a nasty break-up. But it was only recently that scientists employing state-of-the-art brain imaging fMRI technology have been able to view the similarities between the biting pain of rejection from a lover and physical pain.

A study (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/15/6270) published in the April 12 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) has provided the most direct evidence showing a common brain circuit underlying the pain of rejection and physical pain.

In their study, the researchers at Columbia University, University of Michigan and University of Colorado, Boulder studied 40 subjects who had experienced rejection and break-up with a lover within the past six months. They tested each subject on two tasks, a social rejection task and a physical pain task, while imaging their brains.

In the scanner, subjects looked at the faces of their ex and thought about how it felt during their split and a snapshot of their brain was taken. Next they were shown a headshot of a friend of the same sex as their former partner and thought about a recent positive experience they shared. This provided the social rejection condition.

To compare the social rejection experience to the experience of "physical pain" they attached a thermal device to the volunteers' forearms and set it to produced a "painful", but not harmful level.

In both men and women, rejection and painful heat activated brain circuits underlying distress (e.g. Anterior Cingulate cortex) and the sensation of pain e.g. somatosensory cortex).

Although this seems seems intuitive from centuries of poetry, tragic plays and lyrics, knowledge at a mechanistic level showing the same circuits are activated gives scientists new ways to deal with both. It makes one wonder if taking pain-killers shortly after a break-up might be a treatment option.

The common mechanism between social rejection and physical pain may be one reason why heroin and alcohol, both analgesics for pain, are irresistible amongst country and grunge musicians whose melodic ruminations center on tragedy, angst and painful relationships. Kurt Cobain comes to mind when he said, "Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art."

Last year the British pop group ironically named, "The Wanted", brilliantly connected the idea that pain from being unwanted/rejected and searing physical pain were one and the same in their popular song "Lose My Mind". Here are the lyrics and the video (http://youtu.be/lv2CDjyPRkg)

They say that time
Heals everything
But they don't know you
And the scars you bring

'Cos you left a jagged hole
And I can't stand it anymore

If heartache was a physical pain
I could face it I could face it
But you're hurting me
From inside of my head
I can't take it I can't take it

I'm gonna lose my mind
I'm gonna lose my mind

I'd erase my thoughts
If only I knew how
Fill my head with white noise
If it would drown you out
Kill the sound

If heartache was a physical pain
I could face it I could face it

But you're hurting me
From inside of my head
I can't take it I can't take it

I'm gonna lose my mind
I'm gonna lose my mind

And I'd rather be crazy
I'd rather go insane
Than having you stalk
My every thought
Then having you here inside my heart

If heartache was a physical pain
I could face it I could face it
But you're hurting me
From inside of my head
I can't take it I can?t take it

I'm gonna lose my mind
I'm gonna lose my mind