Ask a 50‑year‑old who finishes a raid night and they’ll tell you they don’t feel ten years younger. But according to a new international analysis led by researchers at Western University, their brain might.
Researchers presented findings from the “Brain and Body” project at the Manchester Science Festival after surveying and testing more than 2,000 people worldwide. Participants completed a lifestyle questionnaire and then played a battery of online tasks designed to measure memory, attention, reasoning and verbal skills. What emerged was a clear — if nuanced — pattern: regular, focused video‑game play correlated with better cognitive performance.
Numbers that catch your eye
The headline stat is striking. People who spent five hours or more per week playing a single genre of game showed cognitive abilities akin to someone roughly 13.7 years younger. By contrast, those who played under five hours weekly and hopped between genres performed like people about 5.2 years younger.
Adrian Owen of Western University, one of the study’s leads, summed it up plainly: gaming is “associated with better cognitive performance,” though it’s not a cure‑all.
Where gaming helps — and where it doesn’t
The boost wasn’t uniform. The online tasks probed several domains and gamers tended to outperform non‑gamers on measures tied to memory, attention and reasoning — areas that many games tax constantly. The researchers did not, however, find evidence that gaming improved mental health. Depression and anxiety scores did not differ meaningfully with gaming time.
That’s important. Cognitive sharpening and emotional wellbeing are related but separate. The team also measured physical activity and found the opposite pattern for mood: people meeting the World Health Organization’s guideline of 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week were significantly less likely to report symptoms of depression or anxiety (about 12% less likely for depression and 9% for anxiety in this sample). Physical activity helped mood; gaming helped certain kinds of thinking.
Practice matters — consistency and focus
One of the study’s clearest takeaways is that practice appears to matter. Spending sustained weekly hours on a single game type produced larger differences than short, scattered sessions across multiple genres. That pattern fits with what we know about learning: focused, repeated practice on the same skill tends to produce stronger gains than shallow, varied exposure.
But a key caveat: this is observational. The study shows association, not causation. It’s plausible that people with stronger cognitive skills gravitate toward certain games or stick with them longer. The researchers controlled for a number of factors, but the direction of cause and effect isn’t airtight yet.
Who’s playing more than you think
A bit of demographic color broke common stereotypes: gamers over 45 in this dataset actually reported more playtime than younger players, including Gen Z. That helps explain why the cognitive differences showed up across ages rather than being confined to teens or twenty‑somethings.
If you’re thinking of getting new hardware to test this yourself, mainstream options vary depending on how you like to play. Console ecosystems still matter for social and long‑form titles — and if you’re shopping a high‑performance machine, a PlayStation 5 Pro can cover a lot of ground. If immersive, spatial experiences appeal to you, modern VR headsets like the Meta Quest 3 make different cognitive demands than flat‑screen games.
Consoles and platforms are moving fast — Nintendo recently revised its outlook after stronger-than-expected hardware momentum, so the landscape for where you play could change this generation as Nintendo’s Switch 2 momentum shows. And streaming and remote access keep your library portable; Sony’s streaming updates are making it simpler to play bigger titles away from the living room as the PlayStation Portal cloud streaming update highlights.
What this means for someone curious about ‘brain training’
If you want to treat gaming like a cognitive workout, a few practical notes:
- Be deliberate. Pick a game you enjoy and return to it regularly rather than flitting between dozens of titles every session.
- Mix it with movement. The study suggests mental benefits from games and emotional benefits from exercise — both matter. A walk after a session does more than clear your head.
- Mind the dose. More isn’t always better for life balance. The cognitive associations in this study centered on modest weekly hours (five or more) rather than marathon play.
- Expect variety in outcomes. Different game designs tax the brain in different ways: strategy and puzzle games demand planning and memory, fast‑paced shooters emphasize attention and quick decision making, and open‑world titles may test navigation and multi‑tasking.
Limitations and the research ahead
Scientists will want randomized trials to nail down causality and to identify which game mechanics produce the biggest, most transferable gains. Longitudinal work would also clarify whether cognitive benefits persist or plateau, and whether combining gaming with exercise yields synergistic effects.
For now, the message is more subtle than the clickbait you sometimes see: video games aren’t a panacea for mental health, but for certain cognitive skills — especially when play is concentrated and regular — they appear to offer measurable benefits. So yes, your evening run of levels might be doing more than entertaining you. It could be quietly tuning the parts of your brain that help you learn, focus and solve problems. Lace up your shoes afterwards, too.