POKEMON COLORINGProof by MRI: Pokémon Redrew Your Brain
In the late 90s, few children didn't know Pikachu, Charmander, or Snorlax. With its red, blue, and yellow cartridges, Pokémon marked the childhood of millions, becoming a true cultural phenomenon. On the tiny screens of Game Boys, young trainers spent hours capturing, training, and memorizing fantastic creatures, at a time when many parents feared these games would “stupefy” their children.
And what if, against all odds, these gaming sessions actually contributed to forging a unique cognitive ability? That's what a 2019 scientific study published in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behaviour reveals. Researchers discovered that children who grew up with Pokémon developed a specialized brain area, still active in adulthood. A fascinating discovery that questions our way of understanding learning, visual memory... and the lasting effects of our childhood passions.
A Closer Look at the Scientific Study
The study in question, conducted by Jesse Gomez, Michael Barnett, and Kalanit Grill-Spector at Stanford University, examines the long-lasting impact of prolonged exposure to Pokémon on the brain. Published in 2019 in Nature Human Behaviour, it is based on a simple but innovative idea: our brain can profoundly reconfigure itself when exposed to repetitive stimuli during childhood.
To test this hypothesis, the researchers assembled two groups of adults: eleven “Pokémon experts” who had played intensively between ages 5 and 8, and eleven people with no notable exposure to the game. Each participant underwent a functional MRI while being shown a series of images — faces, animals, familiar objects... and Pokémon.
The result: in the “experts,” a precise region of the brain, the occipitotemporal sulcus, was selectively activated at the sight of the Game Freak creatures. This phenomenon was not observed in any member of the control group.
Understanding the “Eccentricity Bias” Concept
Why did this specific brain area activate in Pokémon players? To understand this, one must delve into a fundamental principle of human vision: the eccentricity bias. This concept describes how our visual cortex organizes according to the position of objects in our field of vision. Elements perceived at the center of our gaze — in the area called the fovea — are processed differently from those seen peripherally. The brain dedicates specific areas to face recognition (looked at head-on), reading (also central), or identifying familiar objects.
In the case of Pokémon, the sprites of the creatures were displayed on a small screen, and the player looked at them very intently, always at the center of the image. This repeated, focused, and visually homogeneous exposure allowed a brain area to specialize, similar to the one dedicated to faces. The visual experience shared by millions of children thus crystallized into a predictable cerebral organization, in a location corresponding to this favored “central vision.”
Brain Plasticity and “Visual Expertise”
This phenomenon of neuronal adaptation illustrates a fundamental capacity of our brain: brain plasticity. During childhood, the brain is particularly malleable, capable of creating, strengthening, or reorganizing connections in response to repeated experiences. This same plasticity allows a child to learn to read, speak a foreign language, or instantly recognize the faces of their relatives.
In the frame of the Pokémon study, researchers showed that this plasticity served a form of “visual expertise”. Just as experts in birds or cars develop specialized brain regions to recognize their field of expertise, Pokémon players shaped an area capable of identifying imaginary creatures. This activation is not just an emotional memory: it is inscribed in the very architecture of the visual cortex. A subtle but lasting biological marker, witnessing the intensity of this childhood experience.
What the Study Doesn't Say (and What It Makes Clear)
Despite its fascinating nature, this study has sometimes been misinterpreted in the media or on social networks. No, the researchers are not saying that playing Pokémon makes you smarter. They do not measure IQ, strategic, or memory capabilities of the participants. Their work focuses exclusively on visual recognition and the specialization of a cortex area, without any proven link to overall cognitive improvement.
However, the study highlights an essential point: the absence of negative effects. No signs of brain disorder or alteration were observed. On the contrary, the former Pokémon players who participated in the study mostly hold doctorates or occupy highly qualified jobs today. This suggests that a childhood passion, even as engrossing as a video game, **does not hinder intellectual development. ** And above all, it reminds us that the brain deeply records what we intensely look at, even when the object of our attention is a pixelated Pikachu on a tiny screen.
Implications and Perspectives
The results of this study open exciting avenues for neuroscience research, but also for education and the design of digital tools.
If repeated exposure to a type of visual stimulus can shape a dedicated brain region, this could be exploited to improve visual learning, reading, or even rehabilitation after brain injuries. By targeting key developmental periods in children, we could design interfaces and educational content that “sculpt” the brain beneficially.
What the Pokémon experiment reveals is that our visual environment leaves lasting imprints on our brain's structure. Far from being trivial, the images we are exposed to — especially in childhood — contribute to shaping our perceptual abilities. In this context, video games, often criticized, may deserve a reevaluation: well-designed, they can stimulate specific skills without compromising overall development. And perhaps catching Pokémon was, in fact, a form of early brain training?
The study conducted on former Pokémon players demonstrates how sensitive our brain is to what we intensely watch during childhood. By focusing their attention on a coherent, centered, and highly repetitive visual universe, millions of children unknowingly sculpted a specific region of their visual cortex. Not because they memorized dozens of creatures, but because they watched them over and over, always in the same way.
This scientific work does not transform Pokémon into a miraculous educational tool, but it reminds us that a child’s brain is never passive. Even when playing, it learns, encodes, and adapts. And maybe, in the end, Game Boys didn’t so much “make kids dumb,” but offered them a unique opportunity to exercise their vision... while living unforgettable adventures in a region called Kanto.