This Research Topic aims to bring together the latest studies investigating the neurocognitive and sensory-motor effects of playing computer games and competing in Esports. Recent research studies have highlighted an existing link between neurocognitive benefits following video game playing. Of particular interest is the emerging area of esports, which encompasses video/computer games played competitively within the medium of cyberspace.
Esports are being characterized by increasing competition levels as well as professional gaming levels.

Understanding the cognitive and physical changes that take place as gaming expertise develops is a central investigation topic in Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience as well as Sports Psychology.

Despite previous misconceptions, video games are now considered an excellent model environment from which neurocognitive expertise might be measured and evaluated.

Video game training has also been presented as a facilitating tool during the aging process in healthy individuals. The enhancement of perceptual and cognitive functions has been reported both in young and older adults.

Esports is a potentially fruitful area for scientific research to increase our understanding of cognition, cognition facilitation, and human performance. Additionally, the massive scale of participation, the constrained digital environments in which participants play, the pervasive social nature and large repositories of digital data, together make this topic an intriguing and promising new sphere that could help us broaden our knowledge in Cognition, Sports Psychology, and Performance Psychology.

This Research Topic aims to address key questions in the field, including but not limited to the following:

(1) Which games and gaming genres hold the most promise for neurocognitive research?
(2) What are the roles of games and esports in cognitive processing?
(3) Which brain regions are implicated in skilled gaming?
(4) How is sensory-motor learning achieved in the context of esports?
(5) What does the cognitive profile of an elite gamer look like?
(6) Does participation in gaming and esports engage or benefit other neurocognitive processes?
(7) How does the field ensure methodological rigor, and address pitfalls such as expectancy bias and placebo
effects in study designs?

Answers to such key questions should greatly assist in illustrating the benefits of video games and the neural mechanisms mediating such benefits.

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Frontiers in Psychology

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