Violent video games make you aggressive

Playing violent video games for even a week can alter the brain and make players more aggressive, researchers say.

Playing violent video games for even a week can alter the brain and make players more aggressive, researchers say.

This is because key areas in the brain suffer reduced activity and are left physically altered, a new study has shown.

Scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis took a group of 22 men aged 18-29 and performed MRI scans on them.

They then divided the group in half, and one group was asked to play violent video games for at least 10 hours a week while the second group played none.

Violent

According to the Sunday Times, the researchers found that the effects on the brain were discovered in the left inferior frontal lobe and the anterior cingulate cortex.

“This investigation provides the first longitudial, experimental investigation of video game play on brain activity,” the Daily Mail quoted an abstract of the research report as saying.

However they found that when gamers stopped playing, their brains returned to normal.

The results will be published at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.