The cognitive benefits of play: Effects on the learning brain

Science supports many of our intuitions about the benefits of play.

Playful behavior appears to have positive effects on the brain and on a child’s ability to learn. In fact, play may function as an important, if not crucial, mode for learning.

Want specifics? Here are some examples.

Animal experiments: Play improves memory and stimulates the growth of the cerebral cortex

In 1964, Marion Diamond and her colleagues published an exciting paper about brain growth in rats. The neuroscientists had conducted a landmark experiment, raising some rats in boring, solitary confinement and others in exciting, toy-filled colonies.

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