Sunday Territorian

GAMING ‘DAMAGES BRAIN’

- NATASHA BITA

A YOUNG gaming addict has suffered changes to his brain similar to those seen in dementia patients.

The 21-year-old plans to seek public funding through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) following the neurologic­al report.

“I’m brain damaged,’’ Oliver, who does not want his surname published, said.

He spent three years as a teenager playing the online games for seven hours a day, after dropping out of school in Year 9.

“I quit in October 2015 and I haven’t got better,” Oliver said.

Oliver’s mother Donna said she had spent more than $15,000 on psychologi­sts, psychiatri­sts, brain scans and neurologis­ts.

A CT scan of Oliver’s brain last year found reduced blood flow to the temporal and frontal lobes, a pattern also seen in dementia. But the radiologis­t’s report said the symptoms were not related to Alzheimer’s dementia.

Oliver, who lives near Tamworth, says he has trouble controllin­g his emotions as a result of the constant gaming when he was younger and is calling for games to carry warnings about the chance of addiction.

“It’s very disabling,” he said. “When I get angry I can’t really calm myself down.

“When I did punch a hole in the wall, afterwards I’d be really upset – it’s as if I wasn’t even really there.’’

Oliver said he quit gaming after three years of obsessivel­y playing Minecraft and Team Fortress 2 from the age of 15.

Australian internet addiction expert and teen psychiatri­c specialist Dr Huu Kim Le, who specialise­s in internet gaming disorders, yesterday said gaming could affect the developmen­t of teenage brains.

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