We knew all those hours spent playing video games would someday pay off! A recent study from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development states that regularly playing video games can actually make your brain more powerful.

The study, aptly titled “Playing Super Mario induces structural brain plasticity: gray matter changes resulting from training with a commercial video game,” found that people who played at least 30 minutes of Mario 64 every day for two months actually grew significant amounts of new gray matter in three areas of the brain correlated with spatial navigation, strategic planning, working memory, and motor performance.

So what does this mean? For one thing, the results could have obvious implications for education as well as health. Future research could focus on how games could be used to treat PTSD, schizophrenia, and neurodegenerative diseases.