Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame

This study sought to determine whether playing a “serious” interactive digital game (IDG) – the Re-Mission videogame for cancer patients – activates mesolimbic neural circuits associated with incentive motivation, and if so, whether such effects stem from the participatory aspects of interactive gam...

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Main Authors:	Cole, Steven W., Yoo, Daniel J., Knutson, Brian
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2012
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3307771/

id	pubmed-3307771
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-33077712012-03-22 Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame Cole, Steven W. Yoo, Daniel J. Knutson, Brian Research Article This study sought to determine whether playing a “serious” interactive digital game (IDG) – the Re-Mission videogame for cancer patients – activates mesolimbic neural circuits associated with incentive motivation, and if so, whether such effects stem from the participatory aspects of interactive gameplay, or from the complex sensory/perceptual engagement generated by its dynamic event-stream. Healthy undergraduates were randomized to groups in which they were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) as they either actively played Re-Mission or as they passively observed a gameplay audio-visual stream generated by a yoked active group subject. Onset of interactive game play robustly activated mesolimbic projection regions including the caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens, as well as a subregion of the parahippocampal gyrus. During interactive gameplay, subjects showed extended activation of the thalamus, anterior insula, putamen, and motor-related regions, accompanied by decreased activation in parietal and medial prefrontal cortex. Offset of interactive gameplay activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate. Between-group comparisons of within-subject contrasts confirmed that mesolimbic activation was significantly more pronounced in the active playgroup than in the passive exposure control group. Individual difference analyses also found the magnitude of parahippocampal activation following gameplay onset to correlate with positive attitudes toward chemotherapy assessed both at the end of the scanning session and at an unannounced one-month follow-up. These findings suggest that IDG-induced activation of reward-related mesolimbic neural circuits stems primarily from participatory engagement in gameplay (interactivity), rather than from the effects of vivid and dynamic sensory stimulation. Public Library of Science 2012-03-19 /pmc/articles/PMC3307771/ /pubmed/22442733 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033909 Text en Cole et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Cole, Steven W. Yoo, Daniel J. Knutson, Brian
spellingShingle	Cole, Steven W. Yoo, Daniel J. Knutson, Brian Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame
author_facet	Cole, Steven W. Yoo, Daniel J. Knutson, Brian
author_sort	Cole, Steven W.
title	Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame
title_short	Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame
title_full	Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame
title_fullStr	Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame
title_full_unstemmed	Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame
title_sort	interactivity and reward-related neural activation during a serious videogame
description	This study sought to determine whether playing a “serious” interactive digital game (IDG) – the Re-Mission videogame for cancer patients – activates mesolimbic neural circuits associated with incentive motivation, and if so, whether such effects stem from the participatory aspects of interactive gameplay, or from the complex sensory/perceptual engagement generated by its dynamic event-stream. Healthy undergraduates were randomized to groups in which they were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) as they either actively played Re-Mission or as they passively observed a gameplay audio-visual stream generated by a yoked active group subject. Onset of interactive game play robustly activated mesolimbic projection regions including the caudate nucleus and nucleus accumbens, as well as a subregion of the parahippocampal gyrus. During interactive gameplay, subjects showed extended activation of the thalamus, anterior insula, putamen, and motor-related regions, accompanied by decreased activation in parietal and medial prefrontal cortex. Offset of interactive gameplay activated the anterior insula and anterior cingulate. Between-group comparisons of within-subject contrasts confirmed that mesolimbic activation was significantly more pronounced in the active playgroup than in the passive exposure control group. Individual difference analyses also found the magnitude of parahippocampal activation following gameplay onset to correlate with positive attitudes toward chemotherapy assessed both at the end of the scanning session and at an unannounced one-month follow-up. These findings suggest that IDG-induced activation of reward-related mesolimbic neural circuits stems primarily from participatory engagement in gameplay (interactivity), rather than from the effects of vivid and dynamic sensory stimulation.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2012
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3307771/
_version_	1611515451641167872

Interactivity and Reward-Related Neural Activation during a Serious Videogame

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