neils clark

Fresh off the harddrives at the New York Times: patients with a very specific type of brain damage were found to have a far easier time at quitting smoking.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/science/26brain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

What I’m really interested in learning - does the Insula, the part of the brain identified in this study, influence how real TV or videogame imagery seems to be? From the descriptions of this study here, it seems more likely that experiencing media may be playing a role in the process of becoming an excessive gamer.

Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of talk about whether or not dain bramage is appropriate. In videogames, a lot of problematic gamers are probably suffering from built up addictions. There are probably chemicals and impulses that are influenced by the insula… But what if that’s not the only thing? If a game is really approaching the texture of real life, as Thomas Malaby’s “stopping play,” or my “media experience,” might suggest, then there is a broad basis of similarity between what motivates us to live real life, and that which motivates us to play an MMO, online, and to a variable extent a single player game.

On the other hand, maybe that’s what the insula is all about. Since accidentally discovering the large role of Dopamine in addiction, we’ve gone on to make real advancements in the last few years. Don’t go drilling a hole in your brain, but do look for more research verifying these results and then working with them.

Thanks again to Jeff for linking me this.

Neils Clark :: Jan.28.2007 :: Game Addiction, Research ::

Trackback URI | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed