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Brain Scans Reveal Video Gamers' Secrets

courtesy of businessweek.com

How adeptly you play a video game may indicate how big some parts of your brain are, the authors of a new study report.

Researchers found that certain regions of the brain are larger in young people who do a better job of playing a specially designed video game.

In other words, all those people who devote their days to their Wiis and XBoxes may be packing some cerebral heat, at least when it comes to the sheer size of what's inside their skulls.

The findings "can help us understand how individual differences contribute to cognitive differences and how we can enhance brain function by increasing the volume of these regions," said study co-author Arthur F. Kramer, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Scientists have long wondered if big brains translate into extra intelligence, but that's not always true in the animal kingdom. Small birds, for example, have huge brains for their physical size, but they aren't the sharpest critters around.

In the new study, researchers turned to a decades-old video game called Space Fortress. Scientists developed the game, akin to a flight simulator and the classic Space Invaders, to study learning. According to Kramer, it takes about 20 hours for undergraduate students to learn how to become good at the game.

Using MRIs, the study authors measured the size of specific brain regions of 42 participants (aged 18 to 28) before they began playing the video game.

Then the researchers tried to find links between the sizes of different brain regions and how well people played the game. "We wanted to know if individual differences are important in how well people can learn a complex new skill over a limited period of time," Kramer said. "We decided to look into these areas because we've learned an awful lot about the neural circuits that contribute to learning new skills."

The findings are scheduled to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex.

The researchers found that certain regions of the brain, the striatum in particular, were indeed bigger in the most successful players. "Bigger is better in this case, at least among healthy tissue," Kramer said.

The findings seem to confirm that parts of the striatum, which is nestled deep inside the cerebral cortex, determine a person's ability to learn both motor skills and new concepts, and also to adapt to changing situations, the researchers wrote.

The size of another region, the hippocampus, wasn't larger in those people, suggesting that the researchers are onto something regarding the importance of the other regions when it comes to learning skills.

Joe Verghese, director of the Division of Cognitive & Motor Aging at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said the study is preliminary, but it's "an important step."

Verghese said it would have been interesting to know if the video game training itself changed the sizes of those brain regions or boosted their activity.

As for the future, researchers are trying to figure out how to help people boost their brain power by boosting the size of regions of the brain, Kramer said.

For now, another approach works well: Exercise. It helps make the brain larger, he said, because "as you become more physically fit, the brain changes."

Learning new skills also seems to have the same effect, he noted.

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A shaken nation is soothed; 'Lost' won't be pre-empted

courtesy of MercuryNews.com

The first episode of the final season of "Lost" will spew forth new layers of confusion and complexity (It was all a dream!) right on time after all, with the White House seeking to calm a jittery nation by announcing that the president will not interrupt the long-awaited episode by giving some sort of national address the same night.
Fear ran rampant when it was announced that President Barack Obama wanted to push back the annual State of the Union address — typically held in late January — to February 2, which as everyone knows is the season premiere of "Lost."
Impeachment papers were readied.
But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs assured viewers Friday that he "doesn't foresee a scenario in which millions of people that hope to finally get some conclusion in 'Lost' are pre-empted by the president."
The "Lost" news came in response to a question from ABC correspondent Ann Compton at the afternoon press briefing.
The time slot for "Lost" may be secured, but still no word on what day the president will deliver the State of the Union. Super Bowl Sunday, perhaps?

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Japanese Scientists Create See-Through Fish

Japanese researchers have produced a new species of goldfish with see-through skin. You can see the fish's beating heart, brain, and other internal organs, right through its invisible scales. And that's precisely the point--the scientists created the fish to eliminate the need for dissections, which are getting ever more controversial in Japan.

Creating the 'Ryukin': the Translucent Goldfish
According to the AFP, the researchers "produced the "ryukin" goldfish by picking mutant hatchery goldfish with pale skin and breeding them together." They effectively bred fish with translucent, pigment-less scales and skin. The see-through fish will also live 20 years and grow up to 10 inches long--proving they're certainly not your average goldfish.

Another group of Japanese researchers had already developed translucent frogs, which they're planning on 'mass producing' and selling as early as next year. The see-through goldfish should be close behind. Both were created in response to mounting pressures from animal rights groups who object to mass dissections.