BOOSTING YOUR MIND BY PLAYING 3D VIDEO GAME

BOOST YOUR MING

Are you hooked to 3D video games? Well, if yes, that may not be too bad as new research reveals that playing 3D video games, besides being lots of fun, can also boost the formation of memories.

Along with adding to the trove of research that shows these games can improve eye-hand coordination and reaction time, this finding shows the potential for novel virtual approaches to helping people who lose memory as they age or suffer from dementia.

For their research, University of California-Irvine neurobiologists Craig Stark and Dane Clemenson recruited non-gamer college students to play either a video game with a passive, two-dimensional environment or one with an intricate, 3D setting for 30 minutes per day over two weeks.

Before and after the two-week period, the students took memory tests that engaged the brain's hippocampus, the region associated with complex learning and memory.

They were given a series of pictures of everyday objects to study. Then they were shown images of the same objects, new ones and others that differed slightly from the original items and asked to categorize them.

Recognition of the slightly altered images requires the hippocampus, Stark said.Students playing the video game improved their scores on the memory test, while the 2D gamers did not. Memory performance increased by 12 percent, the same amount it normally decreases between the ages of 45 and 70.

"First, the 3D games have a few things the 2D ones do not. They've got a lot more spatial information in there to explore. Second, they're much more complex, with a lot more information to learn Either way, we know this kind of learning and memory not only stimulates but requires the hippocampus," he added.

The study appeared in The Journal of Neuroscience.

MOUSE FOR GAME LOVER

MOUSE FOR GAME LOVER

are you a great  fan of the Diablo series of games?

its third installation – the much-hyped Diablo III – might have left you with a bit of a grimace: it was damn hard.

I can report to you from the front lines of playing the game that yes, it was in fact as hard as discussed, and yes, it was in fact as long as rumored. I in fact failed to complete the game, after realizing that if one more of those flying  monsters killed me I was set to punch a hole through my monitor. But I digress.

One of the reasons that Diablo III was harder than it might have -been was its inclusion of some anti-macro technology, blocking users from running short scripts to help them launch repeat actions to speed along their gameplay. That was a no in the game, leading to more button mashing and general frustration THE GILA from GX gaming  that has a- surprising claim: it has both a CPU and a block of memory on-board, allowing it the capability to to get around certain in-game restrictions on macros. This means that, in theory, you could turn the tables on Diablo III and let you combo-power your way through the game with the click of a pre-programed button. And the mouse has oodles of them, with profile switching to allow you to jump from game to game, sans the need to re-code.....

The only real downside to the Gila is that it appears to be a mouse crossed with a Transformer that recently went through a blender the hard way...

The thing will set you back about $100, but is currently out of stock on Amazon. It’s a relatively new mouse, which we first spotted last night at CES Unveiled. Hello from Las Vega..