I remember reading a while back about a link between competitive bridge (the stereotypically old person card game) playing and a lack of cognitive decline in aging adults. I'm curious if competitive video games have a similar anti-brain-aging effect.
I’d be baffled if they didn’t. Time and again studies have shown that the complex overlapping cognitive demands of games such as shooters have a distinct and lasting benefit. IIRC, researchers in one case studied people playing an early iteration of the Splinter Cell franchise. They believed that the combination of having to manage inventory dynamically, memorize and keep track of shifting 3-D map, plus seek out and engage hostoles added up to quite the workload. This would tend to fit with the “use it or lose it” theory of neuroplasticity.