According to a new study, the individuals who were dependent on electronic gadgets for daily activities had a poorer cognitive strength than those who rarely used smart devices.
The researchers chose 51 volunteers of diverse ages between 18–40 Years. To better examine the functional MRI scans of the volunteers during brain activities, the researchers carefully opted for only right-handed individuals. All the volunteers were provided with five scientific articles on different topics, comprising electric circuits, mathematics, GPS, the planet Mars, or the environment. While the volunteers were reading the articles, the researchers were examining the real-time brain activities of the volunteers.
Apart from brain activities, the researchers also tracked the eye movements of the participants. By observing the brain activities, the researchers found that the people who were addicted to the smart devices usage had lower activities in the specific regions of their brains, specifically the inferior frontal gyrus and the left insula. These two regions of the brain are associated with complex information processing, paying attention, and learning languages.
According to the researchers, the long-term dependency on electronic devices might alter the way of information processing used by our brains.
On a related note, another team of researchers indicated that weight training could be an effective way to overwhelm cognitive disabilities and might revitalize the production of new neurons. The research is thoroughly explained in a research paper published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
To be precise, the study is validated for lab rats. Maybe, the study holds good for humans as well.
To conduct the study, the researchers induced cognitive impairment in rats’ brain by injecting a particular type of fat that led to neuroinflammation. After inducing cognitive impairment, the researchers divided the lab rats into three groups. The first group involved cognitive impairment-induced gym rats that were tied to small weights. The researchers gave weight training to those rats for three days a week. The second group involved cognitive impairment-induced rodents that were not pushed for any sort of training. The third group comprised rats that were neither injected with any fat nor forced to do any weight training.
After five weeks of study, the researchers concluded that with time, the ability of cognitive impairment-induced gym rats (first group) surpassed the ability of both the sedentary (second group) and control (third group) rats.
