Cognitive Fatigue In Habitual Video Gamers And Non-gamers Among Military Pilots In Training

Military pilots operate in highly stressful situations that require multitasking and high cognitive demand. Prolonged periods of intense and sustained activities cause cognitive fatigue that leads to impairments in cognitive and physical performance in military pilots. Cognitive fatigue is often associated with brain perfusion change. Video gaming is an extremely popular leisure activity among young men. Frequent action video gaming is associated with enhanced attentional abilities and greater accuracy may lead to an attenuation of cognitive fatigue. PURPOSE: To determine if habitual action video gaming is associated with reduced levels of experimentally-induced cognitive fatigue and brain hypoperfusion in military pilots in training. METHODS: Thirty-four young male military pilots (24 ± 1 years) undergoing advanced flying training squadrons were divided into those who had habitually played action video gaming (n = 18) and those who had not (n = 16). All the pilots performed a psychomotor vigilance task (PVT), a mental rotation task, and a time-wall estimation task before and immediately after the time load dual-back task (TloadDback), a working memory dual task in which a classic N-back working memory task and interfering second task (odd/even decision task) was individually adjusted with the fastest stimulus time allowing accuracy performance of >85%. RESULTS: Baseline levels of heart rate at rest, blood pressure, and maximal oxygen consumption were similar between the groups. After TloadDback, reaction time as assessed by PVT increased (p < 0.05) while spatial ability reaction time assessed by the mental rotation task decreased (p < 0.05) in both groups. No significant changes were observed for time estimation accuracy assessed by the time-wall task and spatial ability accuracy assessed by mental rotation accuracy. Time-averaged mean blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral artery (via transcranial Doppler) during PVT, the time-wall task, and mental rotation task remained unchanged in both groups. There were no group differences in any of the cognitive and cerebral blood flow responses. CONCLUSIONS: There were no apparent differences in cognitive function and brain perfusion following cognitive fatigue between habitual video gamers and non-gamers among military pilots in training.