A Stanford study found that people who played Pokémon heavily as kids developed a small region of the brain that responds specifically to Pokémon characters. Researchers scanned adults who grew up playing on Game Boy and showed them images of Pokémon like Pikachu and Bulbasaur. Their brains lit up in the same exact spot, a consistent area in the visual cortex tied to recognizing specific categories of objects. The reason comes down to childhood. When you’re young, your brain is more flexible, and spending hours memorizing hundreds of similar-looking Pokémon essentially trained it to carve out space just for them. (via @Stanford)