April 25, 2001 2:00 AM

Sometimes, reality and fantasy are not so different.

In the first study, researchers took magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of eight youngsters' brains as they watched boxing scenes from the movie Rocky IV, blank screens or a film showing baby animals. The researchers found that the kids' brains processed the violence they saw on the screen the same way they process real violence, activating a part of the brain that is believed to store memories of traumatic events, like a rape.

The second study looked at the video game habits of more than 600 young teen-agers and found that those who play a lot of violent games are more prone to aggressive behavior than those who don't play the games. This was true even when the video game players weren't hostile by nature. And even the non-players who were more temperamental and aggressive at the start of the study were less apt to get into physical fights than those who played a lot of video games.