A recent study (Kuhn & Gallinat, in press) found that participants who played Super Mario 64 (an amazing game by the way) for 30 minutes a day for 2 months experienced a significant increase in gray matter volume in brain areas that control spatial awareness, memory, and strategic thinking. The specific areas that saw an increase were the right hippocampus, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and on both sides of the cerebellum. This was compared to the control group that did not play video games during the study. MRI scans were taken at the beginning and end of the study to establish changes in brain structure.
As someone who loves playing video games this is pretty good news, especially since the media often chooses to vilify video games as a scourge of the people. Obviously though this doesn't mean that you should go and play video games non-stop (more research needs to be done to establish the ideal amount of time spent playing video games) and it will also be dependent on what type of video game you play (again, more research will be needed to work out specific facts). But all in all it's still good news.
The full Nature article
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