Structural changes after videogame practice related to a brain network associated with intelligence

Roberto Colom*, M. Ángeles Quiroga, Ana Beatriz Solana, Miguel Burgaleta, Francisco J. Román, Jesús Privado, Sergio Escorial, Kenia Martínez, Juan Álvarez-Linera, Eva Alfayate, Felipe García, Claude Lepage, Juan Antonio Hernández-Tamames, Sherif Karama

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademic

39 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Here gray and white matter changes after four weeks of videogame practice were analyzed using optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM), cortical surface and cortical thickness indices, and white matter integrity computed from several projection, commissural, and association tracts relevant to cognition. Beginning with a sample of one hundred young females, twenty right handed participants were recruited for the study and assigned to a practice or a control group carefully matched by their general cognitive ability scores. After the first scan, the practice group played '. Professor Layton and The Pandora's Box' 4. h per week during four weeks. A second scan was obtained at the end of practice and intelligence was measured again. Image analyses revealed gray and white matter changes in the practice group. Gray matter changes theoretically relevant for intelligence were observed for the practice group mainly in frontal clusters (Brodmann areas 9 and 10) and also in smaller parietal and temporal regions. White matter findings were focused in the hippocampal cingulum and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus. These gray and white matter changes presumably induced by practice did not interact with intelligence tests' scores.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)479-489
Number of pages11
JournalIntelligence
Volume40
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2012
Externally publishedYes

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