Science: Male brains more stimulated by video games

December 28, 10:17 AMPC Game ExaminerBryan Edge-Salois

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Science proves that men find video games are more
stimulating to certain parts of the male brain.

According to an article on MedicineNet.com, a recent study shows that playing video games activates parts of the male brain that make us feel rewarded for conquering, beating stuff up, and thumping our chests in general. Apparently, the better we do at these things, the more stimulated the male brain becomes.

In the study (published recently in the Journal of Psychiatric Research), 22 Stanford undergraduate students (11 men and 11 women) were recruited to play a video game designed by the study authors.

The game involved competing to win on-screen territory by clicking on a series of balls. Although both genders clicked the same number of balls, men quickly won more space than women -- apparently because men were better at identifying which balls would give them the most space if clicked.

After analyzing the MRI data, the researchers found that both male and female participants showed activation in the brain's mesocorticolimbic center, the region typically associated with reward and addiction.

Male brains, however, showed much greater activation than female brains, and the amount increased as they gained more territory. This was not the case with women.

Three structures within the "reward circuit" (the nucleus accumbens, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) were also shown to influence each other much more in men than in women.

A few thoughts:

• Better to be virtually conquering, killing, and maiming than the real thing.
• Given the nature of the game used in the test, maybe this only proves that men find it more rewarding to touch their balls than women do. Somehow that hardly seems surprising.
   

Read more about the study at MedicineNet.com

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