Do violent video games impact the brain or not? There hasn’t been much science to show a prolonged negative neurological effect.

But a new study recently presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North American found changes in brain of young men who played such games for a week.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging and found some changes in the brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control after one week of play.

“For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home,” said Dr. Yang Wang, assistant research professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, in a statement. “These brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior.”

Wang look at 22 healthy adult males, age 18 to 29, who hadn’t played many such video games. One group of 11 played a shooting game for 10 hour in one week and then took a week off. The second group didn’t play at all. Their brains were imaged at the beginning and end, and those who played the games showed less activation in the brain compared with their baseline results and the results of those who didn’t play the games.

“These findings indicate that violent video game play has a long-term effect on brain functioning,” Dr. Wang said.

Do you believe it?