Video games found to be a key tool in preventing dementia

The Rx for fun that can help prevent Alzheimer’s!

By now, all the presents have been opened… Uncle Bob has sung his version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” more than a dozen times… and the kids and grandkids are busy with the latest tech toys Santa left for them.

Time to sit back and relax, right?

Not so fast.

You may just want to squeeze on in between those video “gamers” in your house and get a quick lesson on how to play one — because, as some new research has discovered, doing so may just be the boost your brain needs to stay sharp.

In fact, this “treatment” is said to be powerful enough to ward off dementia — even Alzheimer’s disease!

Game on!
Can you imagine what Big Pharma would do if that golden ticket to preventing Alzheimer’s came from Nintendo instead of Novartis or PlayStation instead of Pfizer?

And considering what researchers from the University of Montreal have found, your doctor may soon write you a “prescription” to play.

Researchers tested different kinds of activities that stimulate the brain on a group of volunteers who ranged in age from 55 to 75.

Some were asked to take piano lessons (for the very first time), and others were selected to play a 3D video game for 30 minutes a day (in this test, the game was “Super Mario 64”).

Now, you would think that trying to learn a complex new activity such as playing the piano would stimulate your brain more than chasing a portly cartoon plumber around a screen, but it didn’t!

Only the people who played the “Super Mario” games showed any real changes: They performed better on cognitive tests and showed improved short-term memories!

Plus that, MRIs showed an increase in “gray matter volume” in parts of their brains — and since decrease of grey matter is closely associated with memory loss, these findings are extremely significant.

Being scientists, however, the researchers also wanted to find out exactly why the video games appeared to cause such a positive change, whereas the piano lessons didn’t.

And they concluded that playing a 3D video game stimulates the hippocampus region in the brain, causing a “cognitive map” or “mental representation” to be formed. In other words, you’re forcing your brain to flex its “muscle!”

On the other hand, when you let your brain “rest” for too long, that grey matter starts to shrink away, or atrophy.

And since changes in the volume of the hippocampus appear to be linked to developing Alzheimer’s disease, this new discovery may be exactly where future research on dementia is heading.

Now, if you’ve never played one of these new video games, you’re in for a surprise. They’ve gone decades (literally!) beyond chasing Pac-Man around a dotted maze.

Lots of new brain-stimulating 3D games are coming out all the time, and you can play many of them on your phone or tablet.

And what these Canadian researchers found isn’t a fluke — it’s not even the first time that scientists have discovered the brain benefits these games can offer seniors. But here’s something important to remember: You can’t just “give it a try,” say, when the kids are around.

As neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel tells it, just picking up a game and fiddling around with it for a few minutes won’t do the trick. You have to play long enough to get better at it.

“Anytime the brain is in learning mode,” Dr. Kornel said. “There are new synapses forming between the neurons.” So, by creating all those (thousands) of new connections, you can apply them to “other tasks as well.”

“Some video games are good for older adults’ brains” Universite de Montreal, December 6, 2017, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com