The effect of video game experience on the cortical networks for increasingly complex visuomotor tasks

The goal of this study was to examine the effects of heavy video game experience on the patterns of cortical activation during progressively complex nonstandard visual-to-motor transformations, relative to those patterns observed in less skilled individuals. Using fMRI, we examined the BOLD response during a series of increasingly complex visuomotor transformations. The results showed that extensive video game experience decreased many of the parietal-frontal activations and increased some prefrontal activations associated with planning for different non-standard visuomotor transformations. These data imply that there is an altered weighting within the cortical networks for planning increasingly complex visuomotor tasks. These results extend previous studies on the efficiency of cortical networks for visually guided motor tasks by skilled performers.