Video games may have cognitive benefits for kids

UNITED STATES (KYMA, KECY) - If you're worried about how much time your kid spends playing video games, there's a new study that might make you feel a bit better.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and published Monday in the Journal JAMA Network Open.

It found gaming may help with both cognition and impulse control.

According to the study, kids who played video games three or more hours a day did better on tasks associated with memory and impulse control than those who didn't play.

The gamers also had higher levels of activity in parts of the brain associated with attention and working memory.

However, the study didn't find a direct causal relationship between video games and cognitive improvements.

Other studies have had similar findings, but this one involved the largest group of children to date.