A screen shot of the video game "Space Fortress" which was used to measure performance and learning rates.
Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
SYDNEY: The size of three specific regions of the brain can predict performance in video games, and may show the way forward for education, said American psychologists.
Participants in the study had to play the video game "Space Fortress", and submit to brain scans to measure the volume of three parts of the 'striatum', located deep in the forebrain and thought to be responsible for picking up skills and behavioural habits.
The research, conducted at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, showed that participants with larger striatal volumes learned faster and achieved higher scores.
Size does matter
"This is the first time that we've been able to take a real world task like a video game and show that the size of specific brain regions is predictive of performance and learning rate," said psychologist Kirk Erickson from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Erickson said the findings might be useful in determining the needs of students in education. "We can use information about the brain to predict who is going to learn certain tasks at a more rapid rate," he said.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers measured the volume of the 'nucleus accumbens', which is part of the brain's reward circuitry, linked to reinforcement and motivation. The sizes of participant's nucleus accumbens ranged from about 0.4 to 1.4 mL.
The other two structures, called the 'caudate nucleus' and 'putamen', are known to play a key role in procedural and habit learning and the execution of learned behaviours. The size of each of these structures in participants ranged from about 4 to 7 mL.
Brain parts change size
Erickson said that it is not known whether inherited factors or lifestyle play a bigger role in the variation in size between the participants.
"Brain volumes and the size of these structures shouldn't be thought of as static," he said. "These people may have done some things throughout their lives that have made the volumes of these structures larger."
Participants in the study were separated into two groups and played the video game 'Space Fortress' for 20 hours in 10 separate two-hour-long sessions. Players attempted to destroy a fortress as many times as possible while avoiding damage to their own ship. Points are awarded for avoiding damage, controlling the ship or identifying hazards.
One group was asked to focus on maximising their overall score, an approach called 'fixed priority training'.
Another group was asked to periodically shift their priorities to concentrate on improving their skills in one area while also maximising success at other tasks. This approach is called 'variable priority training'.
This approach encourages flexible decision-making and is considered the best method for improving the skills people use in every day life, according to the researchers.
Bigger is better
Players with a larger nucleus accumbens did better in the early stages of the training period across both groups, but this relationship did not hold in the later stages of the study.
Erickson said this was consistent with the role of the nucleus accumbens in reward and motivation. "This sense of achievement and the emotional reward that accompanies it is likely highest in the earliest stages of learning," he said.
In addition, video-gamers with a larger caudate nucleus and putamen scored more points during variable priority training than those with smaller brain structures, the study reported.
More relevant for multi-taskers
Players in the variable priority training group with the larger caudate nucleus and putamen "learned more quickly and learned more over the training period," said psychologist and co-author Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. This was evidenced by these players achieving higher scores on average.
But there was no relationship between performance and the size of the caudate nucleus or putamen in the group that used fixed priority training. The study said these areas of the brain were less relevant for this group because they did not have to employ "flexible task prioritisation".
Erickson said it is unclear exactly how a greater volume affected learning, but it could be related to larger brain regions having better blood supply or larger and more neurons.
Neuroscientist Greg Egan from the Howard Florey Institute in Melbourne said the results are consistent with what experts would expect to see, but stresses that learning ability also depends on connections to the outer layer of the brain. "It's the connectivity that gives the ability for procedural learning," said Egan. "The next thing you'd want to do is determine that the larger size also means more connections to the cortical areas."
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