Video games are good for a developing brain, study shows

Huge news for the kids who grew up gaming: There are some cognitive benefits associated with children who play video games.

Children who played video games showed "enhanced cognitive performance" in comparison to children who did not play video games, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association. Researchers studied 2,217 children and found that there were "blood oxygen level-dependent signal differences" associated with video gaming in regions of the brain that relate to tasks during inhibition control and working memory.

"These findings suggest that video gaming may be associated with improved cognitive abilities involving response inhibition and working memory and with alterations in underlying cortical pathways," the research stated. 

This isn't the first study connecting cognitive analysis to children who play video games. Plenty of research has previously linked video gaming to increases in aggressive behavior in kids. But, after accounting for variables like prior aggression, studies have been pretty mixed; some say video games are good for kids, others, not so much.

"This study adds to our growing understanding of the associations between playing video games and brain development," NIDA Director Nora Volkow told the National Institutes of Health of this study. "Numerous studies have linked video gaming to behavior and mental health problems. This study suggests that there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation."