Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Minecraft Test Shows Beer Is Bad for the Young Brain

January 25, 2016 By Matt Terry, McMaster University

An experiment using the popular video game Minecraft has shown that teens who drink too much may be in for some serious consequences in the not-too-distant future.

Undergrads Amentha Rajagobal and Maya Sengupta-Murray have found that alcohol can have a significant impact on the developing brain – specifically the hippocampus, responsible for spatial navigation and memory formation.

Researchers have known for some time that alcohol can impact brain function in adults, but less is known about the effects of alcohol on young brains.

To test its impact, the students recruited undergraduate participants who answered questions about their use of alcohol: when did they take their first drink, how often do they drink, how much and so on.

They then asked the subjects to play a game in which they had to remember where objects were found in the world of Minecraft.

The pair of researchers found that those who started drinking at an earlier age, had more trouble remembering objects’ locations than those who drank later in adolescence.

“The frontal lobe and the hippocampus keep developing into our twenties,” says Rajagobal. “They keep growing and changing in ways the rest of the brain doesn’t, so they’re more susceptible to damage from things like drinking at an early age.”

The effects of such damage, however, could extend well beyond the diminished ability to navigate through a video game, or even down the street.

“The hippocampus is used to form memories,” says Sengupta-Murray. “Let’s say you have a dog: you can smell it, you can hear it, you can feel it. The hippocampus connects all those sensations and forms the memories of your dog. If you damage your hippocampus, it’s not just that you’ll have difficulty remembering where things are – it’s that you’ll have difficulty forming memories of anything.”

What’s most alarming about the research isn’t even the results, but how quickly damage appears to be occurring amongst drinkers.

“These are the kind of results you’d expect from a 50-year-old alcoholic, not 19-year-old students,” says Rajagobal. “We didn’t expect to see such significant differences between drinkers and non-drinkers so early in life.”

The results have had an immediate impact on the young researchers: Rajagobal and Sengupta-Murray drink much less than they used to.

“It’s alarming,” says Sengupta Murray. “The fact that three years of drinking is enough to produce measurable deficits is frightening.”

The research was performed for Sue Becker’s fourth-year Cognitive Neuroscience course.

Related Articles Read More >

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics Mike Wilson Ryan Douglas
How DeepWell is developing video games as tools for treating medical conditions
A woman with a small, handheld device in her lap with tubes that look like earphones plugged into her ears.
Ear-puffing device for migraine treatment wins FDA breakthrough designation
Abbott
Abbott launches upgraded digital health app for neurostimulation
Catheter delivery could enable better brain implants: Synchron’s neuroscience chief explains how

DeviceTalks Weekly.

May 27, 2022
Quick message - No DTW podcast, but plenty else to listen to over this weekend and next week.
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech 100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech