study

Boys' Brains Make Them Want To Win

Can't figure out why your old lady won't sit and play Halo 3 with you, guys? Don't know why the man in your life won't stop playing Call of Duty 4 until the wee hours of the morning, ladies? According to a new study by the Stanford School of Medicine, the part of the brain that gives of a feeling of reward and accomplishment is more active in men than in women.

Twenty-two men and women were given a simple game, in which they had to control a number of balls and a wall in a certain way to protect territory and ultimately win the game, while their brain patterns were tracked on a fMRI machine.

"The females 'got' the game, and they moved the wall in the direction you would expect," said Reiss, who is director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research. "They appeared motivated to succeed at the game. The males were just a lot more motivated to succeed."

Both groups showed activity in the mesocorticolimbic center, which is the part of the brain associated with rewards and addictions, but the males showed a lot more activity.

So there you have it. Could this really be the reason your girlfriend won't play Xbox with you? I guess it would account for the higher number of males that play video games than females, and would also make sense why not all guys love games, and why not all girls don't. After all, having a gendered brain doesn't mean that your brain is exactly the same as everyone else of your gender, just similar. I think it also comes down to nature vs. nurture, too: video games are becoming a bigger part of our culture, so regardless of how your brain is wired, you'll be more inclined to play games. More information on the study in the press release after the jump.

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At some level, no matter how many hours we dedicate to honing our...craft, if you will...our skills will always be limited by hardware based limitations. And by hardware we mean brain matter, not Cell processors. Researchers long believed that human perception was limited to tracking four moving objects at one time. But a new study, challenging participants to follow 16 dots moving at a very slow pace on a computer screen, found that participants were able to track up to eight objects at once (or double what we previously thought possible). There are limitations, of course. More »

bs detected

Anti-Halo Dr. Is Full Of It, Comes Clean

Earlier this week we told you about the antics of Dr. Susan Bartel, who made claims about Halo, violence, brains and video games on The Morning Show. The thing is, I go drinking with a lot of brain researchers. They are a specialized group of scientists who probably wouldn't write books like Dr. Susan's Girls-only Weight Loss Guide: The Easy, Fun Way to Look and Feel Good? You know, because it takes a lot of specialization to make claims about brain scans, not to mention months of argument on different modeling techniques, area activation relevance, etc.. Anyway, she came clean to Game Politics when they questioned her about her area of expertise:

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research

Sleep More, Game Better With Duke Nukem

The BBC reports that Belgian researchers have proved the common sense adage that more sleep is good for your brain. Volunteers played Duke Nukem, going on place-finding missions. Players had to find various locals as scientists mapped their brain activity with MRI. Researchers learned that the part of the brain involved with memory and direction was most active when gamers had to retrieve memories to find their destinations. Folks that had slept were automatically able to retrieve info, while the sleep-deprived ones had to think harder. "It looks like sleep accelerates this normal process. It looks like the memories are reprocessed during sleep," said a Belgian researcher. Good to know, but Duke Nukem?! More »

will wright

Video: Will Wright Explodes Brains at GDC

Just in case you thought all of that talk about Will Wright's giant brain hurting everyone during his GDC keynote was crap, I've uploaded a taste of the brainy blather. This is Wright addressing why the existence of life is so... or rather that radioactive...um, that life spreads really...actually, I have no idea what the video is about.