There is a very real reason why high-tech games are mostly marketed to the male population. Playing and winning at Playstation 3 or any of the other brands out on the market activates parts of the male brain.
The brain has little areas that are
preprogrammed from centuries old DNA. Afraid of heights? It's a rational fear coming back to primitive men.
Kicking bum and taking no prisoners on Nintendo Wii brings back that primitive desire to conquer.
Scientists wired up men and women to an MRI scanner for a series of studies while they played a video game. The researchers were able to study what parts of the brain was being activated. While women got the game and could win it they were not as driven to win at all costs.
The high-tech games stimulate the brain's mesocorticolimbic centre. That is the area of the brain most associated with reward and addiction. Males in the study had a greater activation of their brain's mesocorticolimbic centre and the more they won the more active that part of the brain became.
There are three parts of the brain structure that deals with the reward circuit; the nucleus accumbens, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex. The better that circuit connected the better males did at the games.
Dr Reiss added: 'These gender differences might help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become "hooked" on, video games than females.
'I think it's fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species.'
That's right boys, games bring out the cavemen in you.
Ladies, it may be a good idea to just toss them raw meat and lock up the clubs when they are in game mode!
XBox Brings Out The Caveman In Males
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