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Nordic nations, North Americans and Antipodeans rank top in navigation skills

People in Nordic countries, North America, Australia, and New Zealand have the best spatial navigational abilities, according to a new study led by UCL and the University of East Anglia.

Researchers assessed data from over half a million people in 57 countries who played a specially-designed mobile game, which has been developed to aid understanding into spatial navigation, a key indicator in Alzheimer’s disease.

With so many people taking part the team were able to reveal that spatial navigation ability across all countries declines steadily across adulthood.

Classified as: Veronique Bohbot, navigation skills, UCL, University of East Anglia, Sea Hero Quest, dementia
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Published on: 9 Aug 2018

Playing action video games may be bad for your brain, study finds

The study by Canadian researchers Dr. Véronique Bohbot of Douglas Mental Health University Institute in Montreal and Dr. Greg West, an associate professor at the French-language Université de Montréal, demonstrates that the way first-person shooter video game players use their brains to navigate within the game changes the impact various games have on their nervous system.

Read more: Radio-Canada International

Classified as: video games, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Veronique Bohbot, nervous system, Radio-Canada International
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Published on: 9 Aug 2017

Playing with your brain

Human-computer interactions, such as playing video games, can have a negative impact on the brain, says a new Canadian study published in Molecular Psychiatry. For over 10 years, scientists have told us that action video game players exhibit better visual attention, motor control abilities and short-term memory. But, could these benefits come at a cost?

Classified as: video games, violence, Veronique Bohbot, Douglas Mental Health Institute, External, faculty, staff, Student, society and culture
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Published on: 8 Aug 2017

Impact of video gaming on the brain

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B by the teams of Dr. Gregory West (Assistant Professor at the Université de Montréal) and Dr. Véronique Bohbot (Douglas Institute researcher and associate Professor at McGill University and the Douglas Research Institute of the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île de Montréal) shows that while video game players (VGPs) exhibit more efficient visual attention abilities, they are also much more likely to use navigation strategies that rely on the brain’s reward system (the caudate nucleus) and not the brain’s spatial memory system (the hippocampus). Past research has shown that people who use caudate nucleus-dependent navigation strategies have decreased grey matter and lower functional brain activity in the hippocampus. 

Classified as: brain, McGill University, neurological disorders, McGill, hippocampus, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, video games, grey matter, Veronique Bohbot, psychiatric disorders
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Published on: 20 May 2015
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