Violent video games change brain activity that controls fear, aggression

Washington, Oct 13 (ANI): Shoot 'em up games have regularly come under scrutiny after excessively violent events, with researchers debating whether intense fighting on a flat screen display also result in aggressive behaviour in real life.

The debate was revived again, after a Norwegian killer is said to have participated in "First-person shooter" games intensely before he killed dozens of people in Oslo's government district and on the vacation island of Utoya, and following shooting sprees in Erfurt, Emsdetten and Winnenden.

Participants in "First-person shooter" games take on the role of a shooter fighting opponents in a war-like situation using different weapons.

Now, researchers from the University of Bonn have found brain activity patterns in heavy gamers that differed from those of non-gamers.

Psychologists, epileptologists and neurologists from the University of Bonn studied the effect of shoot 'em up game images and other emotionally charged photos on the brain activity of heavy gamers.

"Compared to people who abstain from first-person shooters, they show clear differences in how emotions are controlled," explained lead author Dr. Christian Montag from the Institute of Psychology at the University of Bonn.

When the subjects regarded the real, negative pictures, there was greatly increased activity in their amygdalas. This region of the brain is strongly involved in processing negative emotions.

"Surprisingly, the amygdalas in the subjects as well as in the control group were similarly stimulated. This shows that both groups responded to the photos with similarly strong emotions," reported Montag.

But the left medial frontal lobes were clearly less activated in the users of violent games than in the control subjects. This is the brain structure humans use to control their fear or aggression.

"First-person shooters do not respond as strongly to the real, negative image material because they are used to it from their daily computer activities. One might also say that they are more desensitized than the control group," Montag concluded.

The findings have just been published in the scientific journal Biological Psychology. (ANI)