Connectivity in the Dorsal Visual Stream Is Enhanced in Action Video Game Players

Action video games foster competitive environments that demand rapid spatial navigation and decision-making. Action video gamers often exhibit faster response times and slightly improved accuracy in vision-based sensorimotor tasks. Background/Objectives: However, the underlying functional and structural changes in the two visual streams of the brain that may be contributing to these cognitive improvements have been unclear. Methods: Using functional and diffusion MRI data, this study investigated the differences in connectivity between gamers who play action video games and nongamers in the dorsal and ventral visual streams. Results: We found that action video gamers have enhanced functional and structural connectivity, especially in the dorsal visual stream. Specifically, there is heightened functional connectivity-both undirected and directed-between the left superior occipital gyrus and the left superior parietal lobule during a moving-dot discrimination decision-making task. This increased connectivity correlates with response time in gamers. The structural connectivity in the dorsal stream, as quantified by diffusion fractional anisotropy and quantitative anisotropy measures of the axonal fiber pathways, was also enhanced for gamers compared to nongamers. Conclusions: These findings provide valuable insights into how action video gaming can induce targeted improvements in structural and functional connectivity between specific brain regions in the visual processing pathways. These connectivity changes in the dorsal visual stream underpin the superior performance of action video gamers compared to nongamers in tasks requiring rapid and accurate vision-based decision-making.