Neuroscience Blog

A new study involving approximately 1,000 participants shows associations between regular exercise and improved mental health as well as video gaming and enhanced cognition.

Highlights

• Regular exercise of more than 150 minutes per week was associated with enhanced mental well-being but had no effect on cognition.
• Frequent video gaming of more than three hours a week was associated with improved cognition but did not affect mental health.
• These lifestyle interventions can enhance different aspects of mental health and cognition, suggesting routines mixing physical and cognitive components, such as yoga, can target multiple facets of brain health.

Published in PsyArXiv, Owen and colleagues from Western University in Canada present findings from a large-scale study showing an association between exercise and improved mental health as well as video gaming and enhanced cognition. Interestingly, exercise was not linked with improved cognition, and video gaming was not tied to enhanced mental well-being. Findings from this study suggest that incorporating physical and cognition-targeting routines into one’s fitness schedule, through exergaming—which requires physical activity to participate in a video game—or yoga, may target multiple aspects of brain health.

The study, called the Brain and Body study, initially enrolled more than 2,000 participants from around the globe—most were from the US, UK, and Canada. The study participants included younger, middle-aged, and older individuals, and approximately 1,000 of them completed the study.

Furthermore, the study participants completed a lifestyle survey, asking about their exercise and video game-playing habits. After that, the subjects took a Creyos online brain games evaluation that measured their cognitive performance on tasks testing things like memory, attention, reasoning, and verbal abilities. They also completed two tests—the PHQ-2 and GAD-2—screening for depression and anxiety, respectively.

“Playing video games was associated with improved cognitive abilities but not better or worse mental health, whereas more physical activity was associated with improved mental health but not better or worse cognitive health,” said Dr. Adrian Owen, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Western University in a press release.

Exercise Boosts Mental Well-Being and Video Games Enhance Cognition

Exercising more than 150 minutes a week, in accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, was associated with enhanced mental health. For example, those who exercised more than the recommended 150 minutes a week had an 80% reduced likelihood of having moderate symptoms of depression. Moreover, those who exercised more than 150 minutes a week also showed a significantly greater likelihood of having little or no anxiety. These data tie regular exercise with a lower likelihood of having depression and anxiety symptoms and suggest better mental well-being.

All the more, those who played video games frequently (3+ hours per week) exhibited significantly better scores on four out of five measurements of cognition. The enhanced cognitive measures included short-term memory; reasoning abilities; processing speed—how fast your brain takes in, interprets, and responds to information—and overall cognition. Video gaming did not appear to affect the verbal reasoning domain of cognition. These findings suggest that video gaming enhances cognition across multiple cognitive domains, most notably overall cognition.

Incorporating Physical Activity with Video Games to Target Multiple Facets of Brain Health

Establishing a connection between exercising and video gaming with enhanced mental well-being and cognition has proven tricky and has yielded mixed results in previous research. Strengths of this study come from using a large number of participants from multiple age groups and regions of the globe. In that sense, the study provides some of the most compelling evidence to date that exercise boosts mental health and video gaming enhances cognition.

Since exercising and video gaming may boost different facets of brain health, findings from the study suggest incorporating physical activity with video gaming to target mental health and cognition. Those interested could practice such a combination of lifestyle interventions with exergaming—where people must exercise to engage with a video game—or by performing different forms of yoga. Doing so for five hours or more per week may serve as a promising way to boost mental well-being and cognition and could potentially stave off effects from aging like cognitive decline.

Story Source

Wild, C. J., Paleczny, S. G., Xue, A., Highfield, R. & Owen, A. M. Characterizing the Cognitive and Mental Health Benefits of Exercise and Video Game Playing: The Brain and Body Study. Preprint at https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hdj9r (2024).