Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 2, 2026
Behavioral Assessment of Manual Dexterity in Non-Human Primates
Published on: November 11, 2011
Assessing the effects of manual dexterity and playing computer games on catheter-wire manipulation for inexperienced
1University College London Medical School, University College London, Gower St, Kings Cross, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
Aim:
To investigate the effect of playing computer games and manual dexterity on catheter-wire manipulation in a mechanical aortic model.
Material And Methods:
Medical student volunteers filled in a preprocedure questionnaire assessing their exposure to computer games. Their manual dexterity was measured using a smartphone game. They were then shown a video clip demonstrating renal artery cannulation and were asked to reproduce this. All attempts were timed. Two-tailed Student's t-test was used to compare continuous data, while Fisher's exact test was used for categorical data.
Results:
Fifty students aged 18-22 years took part in the study. Forty-six completed the task at an average of 168 seconds (range 103-301 seconds). There was no significant difference in the dexterity score or time to cannulate the renal artery between male and female students. Students who played computer games for >10 hours per week had better dexterity scores than those who did not play computer games: 9.1 versus 10.2 seconds (p=0.0237). Four of 19 students who did not play computer games failed to complete the task, while all of those who played computer games regularly completed the task (p=0.0168).
Conclusion:
Playing computer games is associated with better manual dexterity and ability to complete a basic interventional radiology task for novices.
