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Two cases are reported of boys who suffer epileptic seizures only after playing video games. It is suggested that the amount of time the patient spends in front of the screen before the seizure is important, and also that video games trigger electrocortical activity far more efficiently than either television or intermittent photic stimulation.
Fifty-six healthy adult males were administered the Type A Structured Interview and assessed as exhibiting either Type A (N = 42) or Type B (N = 14) behavior pattern. They were monitored for systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) responses during a series of six challenging tasks: Mental Arithmetic, Hypothesis Testing, Reaction Time, Video Game, Handgrip, and Cold Pressor. The results indicated that Type A subjects exhibited greater cardiovascular responses than did Type B subjects during some (Hypothesis Testing, Reaction Time, Video Game and Mental Arithmetic) but not all (Handgrip and Cold Pressor) of the tasks. These results are discussed in terms of previously reported findings on conditions that do and do not produce differences in Type A/B cardiovascular stress responses.
An exaggerated blood pressure response to mental stress is believed to characterize young adults with genetic risk of essential hypertension, suggesting that stress-induced changes might provide a useful index of pathogenetic processes. We explored this by studying pressor responsivity to competitive tasks in adolescents drawn from a large urban population. Individuals with systolic or diastolic pressures persistently between the 85th and 95th percentiles were evaluated on basal blood pressure, parental history of hypertension, and pressor and heart rate response to a challenging video game. Basal pressure was measured again at 6, 10, and 14 months. A persistently diminished pulse pressure was the cardiovascular characteristic that most reliably typified normotensive subjects with familial hypertension. Response to the video game was the best indicator of risk status. Contrary to expectations derived from research with convenience samples, epidemiologic investigation points to an increased peripheral resistance and lower cardiac output as the cardiovascular pattern more prominently associated with genetic risk in the normotensive adolescent.
Photosensitivity is defined by the appearance of occipital or more diffuse electroencephalographic spikes and waves induced by intermittent light stimulation (ILS), particular patterns, TV-watching, and video games. Photosensitivity is a genetic characteristic. Only the diffuse spikes and waves induced by ILS are correlated with epilepsy. Pure photogenic epilepsy is characterized by seizures which are only visually induced, usually by watching TV. Video games sometimes add a trigger effect due to slowly moving patterns or intense brightness. Several epileptic syndromes are associated with a photosensitivity with or without visually-induced seizures, mainly generalized idiopathic epilepsy.
Pronounced cardiovascular reactivity to stress is a behavioral mechanism that may underlie the pathophysiology of coronary heart disease (CHD). Based on the greater incidence of CHD among males than among females, the purpose of the current investigation was to test the hypothesis that in young adults (ages 17-29), males (n = 47) show more cardiovascular reactivity than females (n = 61) to two stressors, a video game and cigarette smoking. Five of the six comparisons did not support the hypothesis: females were higher on heart rate and diastolic blood pressure reactivity to both stressors; males were higher on systolic blood pressure reactivity to the video game only. The results suggest that females may be particularly physiologically reactive to cigarette smoking.
PURPOSE: This study examined the prevalence rate of astigmatism and its epidemiological risk factors in Singapore school children. METHODS: In a study of school children aged 7 to 9 years old in two schools in Singapore in 1999, a detailed questionnaire was administered to parents regarding reading or close-work habits, past history of close-work, family history, and socioeconomic factors. Cycloplegic refraction was performed five times in each eye. Defining astigmatism as worse than or equal to 0.5, 0.75, and 1 D cylinder in the right eye, the prevalence of astigmatism was calculated. RESULTS: The study population consisted of 1028 children. The prevalence rate of astigmatism (worse than or equal to 1 D cylinder) was 19.2% (95% confidence interval, 16.8 to 21.6). This was not different between genders, ethnic groups, or age (p > 0.05). With-the-rule astigmatism was more common than against-the-rule astigmatism. The prevalence of astigmatism and myopia was 9.8% (95% confidence interval, 8.0 to 11.6). A high AC/A ratio was associated (p = 0.003) with astigmatism, even after exclusion of myopic children. On vectorial analysis, J0 and J45 were associated with the number of hours of playing video games, whereas J45 was also associated with computer use. Only J45 was associated to male gender, a high AC/A ratio, and a family history of myopia. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence rate of astigmatism (> or = 1 D) was 19%. Playing video games and computer use may be associated with astigmatism severity, although the presence of astigmatism (> or = 1 D) was not associated with any nearwork factors. A family history of myopia was associated with oblique astigmatism severity. A high AC/A ratio is associated with astigmatism, and this requires further investigation.
The elevated heart rate response to stress in normotensive offspring of hypertensives (PH+) has been suggested to be a function of sympathetic nervous system activity. This study examined whether parasympathetic nervous system activity may also underlie familial differences in the heart rate response. Twenty-four subjects, half of whom were PH+, were exposed to four stressor tasks administered in counterbalanced order. Stressors were chosen based on previous research that suggested vagal contributions to the heart rate response. Stressors were a cold pack to the forehead, isometric hand grip, a noxious film, and a shock-avoidance video game task. Physiological measures included heart rate (HR), respiration rate (RR), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA values were corrected for corresponding RR by analysis of covariance. Familial differences in HR were observed in response to the hand grip and video game tasks. However, in both cases analyses suggest that familial differences in reactivity were a function of primarily sympathetic as opposed to parasympathetic influences. Familial differences in RSA were not observed for rest or tasks. This study found no evidence for parasympathetic mediation of familial differences in the heart rate response to the stressors employed.
Blood pressure and heart rate were measured at rest and during a television video game in 399 healthy children. At the first assessment, children were in third grade and at the 2-year follow-up, they were in fifth grade. Children were classified according to race (black/white), gender (boy/girl), body mass index (light/heavy), and video game performance (low score/high score). Correlational analysis indicated that irrespective of the classification variable, absolute reactivity values, e.g., a heart rate of 110 bpm, tended to be more stable than change reactivity values, e.g., a heart rate change of 10 bpm. The greater stability of absolute values was most pronounced with systolic blood pressure. Absolute values were at least as stable as resting values and frequently demonstrated greater stability. Mean and maximal reactivities were correlated comparably. We conclude that children's reactivity is a stable characteristic and that, unless indicated by a priori hypotheses, the use of absolute values is preferable to the use of change values.
To evaluate blood pressure reactivity in children and its changes in adolescents, the acute pressor response to a video-game stress test and the noninvasive ambulatory blood pressure monitoring were evaluated in 62 healthy children divided into three age groups. Basal blood pressure values were measured according to the NIH Task Force. With baseline measures and body mass index controlled for, analysis of covariance showed that the video game provoked significant and incremental cardiovascular reactivity across the games in adolescents when compared with the two other groups of children. The same group of children showed also a significantly higher systolic ambulatory pressure during the daytime, whereas no significant difference was observed by basal BP measurement. In conclusion an increased reactivity to external stimuli was observed in adolescents, and this pattern was strictly associated with a higher daily blood pressure.
OBJECTIVE: To determine television viewing habits in Cantabrian children and the influence of these habits on their health and development. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A transversal survey was carried out in the parents of 796 children aged 2-13 years old with the help of 47 primary care pediatricians. The chi-square, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests as well as multiple regression analysis were used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS: Children aged 2-5 years old watched television for 9 hours/week, those aged 6-9 years watched 12.5 hours/ week and those aged 10-13 years watched 14.6 hours/week. Nineteen percent of the families had three or more televisions in their homes. The presence of a television, computer or video games in the child's room increased with age and was 15%, 9% and 10%, respectively. Girls aged 10-13 years were more likely to have computers in their rooms (20% versus 9% of boys of the same age),while boys aged 10-13 were more likely to have video games than girls (22% versus 12%, respectively). Twenty-seven percent of the children watched television alone, 29% watched it while having breakfast and 36% while having lunch or dinner. Fifty-eight percent of the children never ate sweets while watching television and only 1% habitually did so. Obese children and those with a chronic illness watched television more (4.5 and 3 hours/week, respectively) than healthy children. Children with lower school performance watched more television (2.85 hours/week) p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Pediatricians should carry out health education on the number of hours children should spend in front of the television, advising a limit of less than 2 hours/day (the ideal time would be less than 1 hour/day). Parents should watch television with their children, discuss the programs with them and teach them to be critical. The presence of television sets in children's rooms should be avoided and television should not be used as a nanny.
The concept of Internet addiction, also called Internet addictive disorder or pathological Internet use, entered the medical dictionary in 1995. More and more authors have been preoccupied with it lately, and the majority conclude that this condition, on which some people cast doubt a few years ago, well and truly exists. Several forms of Internet addiction appear to exist, categorised according to the type of misuse it is subjected to: "cybersex", "chat rooms", "net gaming", the pathological search for information or video games being the most frequent. Psychiatric disorders most usually associated with Internet addiction seem to be bipolar disorders. As a consequence, efficient drugs would be those that act as thymo-stabilisers, undoubtedly because they are also effective against those bipolar disorders. Psychotherapeutic treatments as discussion groups on the Internet or group therapies have not yet been evaluated.
PURPOSE: To evaluate the relationships between the time spent on sedentary activities (computer usage, video game playing, television viewing, and reading) and physical inactivity in a sample of youth (aged 12-19 years) from the 2000-2001 Canadian Community Health Survey. METHODS: The study sample included 7982 youth (4034 males, 3948 females) across Canada (mean age: 15.61 years, SD: 2.23 years). Weekly time spent on computers, video games, television, and reading during leisure-time was obtained through self-reported questionnaires. Physical inactivity was determined by respondents' daily energy expenditure assessed through a physical activity questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between sedentary activities and physical inactivity respectively by gender. Sociodemographic variables, health status, and overweight status were controlled in the analysis. RESULTS: A substantial proportion of Canadian youth was inactive: 50.3% of males and 67.8% of females. Controlling for sociodemographic variables, health status, and body mass index, television viewing was significantly associated with physical inactivity for both males and females regardless of their overweight status. However, computer usage was associated with physical activity among males, and reading was associated with physical activity among females. CONCLUSIONS: There is a complex inter-relationship between sedentary behaviors and physical inactivity, highlighting the need for targeted interventions addressing patterns of sedentary behavior engagement. Reducing time spent on television viewing may be one plausible strategy within such interventions in reducing physical inactivity among youth.
In a previous study, we reported that black children demonstrated greater cardiovascular reactivity than did white children to the psychological stress of a television video game. Reliance on urban volunteers and the wide age range of the children may have limited conclusions concerning the generalizability of those results. In the present study, 481 of 484 children enrolled in the third grade of the public schools of an entire rural county in Tennessee were examined with the same video game procedure used previously. Results indicated greater heart rate and blood pressure reactivity among black children than among white children. Thus, the previous results were replicated. The greater prevalence of hypertension among black adults may relate to the greater reactivity among black children; reactivity may be either a marker or a mechanism in the development of hypertension.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of transcranial Doppler ultrasonography to detect selective circulatory changes during cognitive activity. METHODS: We measured cerebral artery flow velocity in 21 normal volunteers by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography during rest followed by cerebral activation. Mean and peak systolic flow velocities of the anterior, middle, and posterior cerebral arteries were measured during the performance of a commercial video game. We also measured flow velocity of the anterior cerebral arteries in 18 subjects during a mental arithmetic task. Serial measurements of the right and left sides were made with a headband with two probes. RESULTS: We observed a global increase in the flow velocity above baseline measurements during task performance. During the video game, both middle cerebral arteries (t = 2.6, p = 0.02 for the left; t = 3.3, p = 0.004 for the right) and the left posterior cerebral artery (t = 2.2, p = 0.004) had selective increase in mean flow velocity compared with the ipsilateral anterior cerebral artery. This selective activation was most prominent in the right middle cerebral artery, which had a greater degree of activation than the right posterior cerebral artery (t = 2.8, p = 0.013). We did not observe a statistically significant difference between the right and left middle cerebral arteries, but there was a trend toward a greater activation on the right for both the mean velocity (t = 1.7, p = 0.098) and the peak velocity (t = 1.9, p = 0.079). CONCLUSIONS: Our preliminary investigation suggests that this noninvasive technique has the potential to correlate selective cerebral artery flow dynamics with cognitive activity.
Previous attempts to reduce the effects of television advertising on children's purchase requests have had little success. Therefore, we tested the effects of a classroom intervention to reduce television, videotape, and video game use on children's toy purchase requests, in a school-based randomized controlled trial. Third- and fourth-grade children (mean age, 8.9 years) in two sociodemographically and scholastically matched public elementary schools were eligible to participate. Children in one randomly selected elementary school received an 18-lesson, 6-month classroom curriculum to reduce television, videotape, and video game use. In both schools, in September (before intervention) and April (after intervention) of a single school year, children and parents reported children's prior week's purchase requests for toys seen on television. After intervention, children in the intervention school were significantly less likely to report toy purchase requests than children in the control school, with adjusting for baseline purchase requests, gender, and age (odds ratio, 0.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.12-0.69). Among intervention school children, reductions in self-reported purchase requests were also associated with reductions in television viewing. There was no significant difference between schools in parent reports of children's requests for toy purchases. These findings suggest that reducing television viewing is a promising approach to reducing the influences of advertising on children's behavior.
Competing in various athletic events (track meet, basketball game, or fencing match) can produce analgesia to cold pressor stimuli in male and female college athletes compared with baseline assessments. This competition-induced analgesia has been attributed to the stress associated with competition, which has components related to both physical exercise and the cognitive aspects of competing. This study evaluated the analgesic effect of exercise-related stress, and that caused by the cognitively stressful components of competing independent of exercise. Cold pressor pain ratings were assessed after competition in a track meet and after treadmill exercise or sedentary video game competition in both athletes and nonathletes. As expected, competing in athletics resulted in a decrease in cold pressor ratings in both male and female athletes. Independent of athletic status, treadmill running induced analgesia in women, but not in males, whereas sedentary video game competition produced analgesia in men, but not in women. These findings suggest that different components of the competitive athletic experience might be responsible for the analgesic effects in a sex-dependent manner.
After measuring blood pressure and heart rate at rest and during a video game procedure in 477 children enrolled in 3rd grade, 434 (91%) children had these measurements repeated a year later in 4th grade. Black children demonstrated greater blood pressure and heart rate reactivity than White children in both years, and an increase in heart rate reactivity from 3rd to 4th grade. Gender effects were inconsistent. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures during the video game were more highly correlated from year-to-year than were the resting measures. Regression analysis indicated that systolic reactivity was significantly related to subsequent systolic pressure at rest, particularly among Black girls. Diastolic reactivity was associated with subsequent resting diastolic pressure only among White children. Associations between reactivity and future blood pressure were independent of initial resting blood pressure. This study suggests that cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress may be one important factor in future level of blood pressure and that the increased heart rate reactivity of Black children may be associated with the prevalence of hypertension among Black adults.
The relationship between blood pressure in the laboratory (both at rest and in response to laboratory tasks) and ambulatory blood pressure at home and at work was evaluated. One hundred nineteen normotensive and unmedicated mild-moderate hypertensive black and white females and males participated in laboratory blood pressure monitoring at rest and during four challenging tasks (structured interview, video game, bicycle exercise, and cold pressor test) as well as ambulatory blood pressure monitoring while at home and at work. Baseline blood pressure taken while subjects were at rest was the strongest predictor of ambulatory systolic blood pressure (r = .64) and diastolic blood pressure (r = .77) at work. Among reactivity tasks the strongest predictors of ambulatory blood pressure in the total population were the structured interview and the video game (both psychological tasks) followed by the cold pressor test. Racial comparisons, however, determined that the cold pressor test predicted diastolic blood pressure significantly better for blacks (r = .73) than for whites (r = .40), suggesting a possible difference in blood pressure regulation.