Aggressive youths, violent video games trigger unusual brain activity

By Mary Hardin

“Initial evidence from the study demonstrates that adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders have different frontal lobe activation patterns than teens without the disorder,” said principal investigator Dr. Vincent Mathews, chief of neuroradiology at IUSM. “In other words, fMRI scans show less brain activity in the frontal lobe while the youths with DBD watch violent video games. The frontal lobe is the area of the brain responsible for decision-making and behavior control, as well as attention and a variety of other cognitive functions.”

“This is the first evidence that adolescents with aggressive, disruptive behavior disorders have brain activation patterns that are different from non-aggressive adolescents while watching video games,” said William Kronenberger, associate professor of psychiatry and a co-investigator on the study.

Disruptive behavior disorders are separated into two behavioral disorders, one characterized by persistent rule breaking and resistance to the limits of authority. The other consists of significant violations of the basic rights of others and includes such actions as destruction of property, theft, truancy, human or animal cruelty and fire-setting. This study does not differentiate between the two. The research, conducted over a 24-month period, had teens with DBD and teens without DBD watch a car racing video game that had excitement without violent content and a James Bond video game that had excitement and violent content. While watching the video games, the youths were scanned with fMRI to determine changes in brain activity.

The researchers also found that among subgroups of the non-aggressive adolescents, there were differences in brain function dependent upon the amount of violent media exposure that they reported experiencing on television and in video games during the past year.

“There appears to be a difference in the way the brain responds depending on the amount of past violent media exposure through video games, movies and television,” Mathews said. “These early findings confirm there is a difference in the brain activation patterns of youths with DBD and those without when exposed to a specific stimulus. There also may be a relationship between violent media exposure and brain activity in normal subjects.”

Other IU researchers involved with the study were Mark Lowe, Tie-Qiang Li, Dr. Yang Wang and Dr. David Dunn. Funding was provided by the Center for Successful Parenting.