A new study from the University of California in San Francisco shows that playing a video game might be able to help middle-aged people and senior citizens with their multitasking abilities.

A new study from the University of California in San Francisco shows that playing a video game might be able to help middle-aged people and senior citizens with their multitasking abilities.

Volunteer subjects in the study were people 60 to 85 years old who had their multitasking skills tested before and after playing the specially designed racing game called NeuroRacer.

Adam Gazzaley from the University of California in San Francisco, who led the study said: “We know that through challenging your brain you can drive plasticity and improve its function. We would hope that this type of training would have real-life transfer.”

The game required players drive a car on a racetrack while clicking on certain geometric shapes as they appeared on the screen.

After playing the video game for a month, the study subjects were reportedly better at performing a second task, and had an improved short term memory.

Before playing the game, subjects had an average of 65 percent loss when a second activity was added to the first task.

This fell to 16 percent after playing NeuroRacer for a month.