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(Reuters Health) – People who have trouble concentrating can get help via a new gaming application to improve the ability to concentrate while playing.
The researchers documented improvements in attention in healthy young adults who played a game called Decoder twice a week for a month, according to a report by Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
"For people who have had difficulty concentrating and getting into the flow at work or at the university, Decoder should help them improve their concentration," said Barbara J. Sahakian, co-author, professor and neuroscientist cognitive at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. "Our Decoder game is based on neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies and is therefore based on evidence."
Although researchers have tested the new game app on healthy young people, they hope it can also help people with diseases such as ADHD and traumatic brain injury.
"I hope to start Decoder studies in people with brain injury and in patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in 2019," Sahakian said in an e-mail. "Both groups have problems with attention and concentration."
To find out whether playing Decoder would improve a person's ability to concentrate, Sahakian and his colleagues recruited 75 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 30 years. At the beginning of the study, all participants were subjected to cognitive tests so that researchers could compare baseline scores.
One-third of the volunteers were badigned to play Decoder during eight one-hour sessions spread over four weeks. Another third played bingo for eight one-hour sessions, while the last group continued their life without any intervention.
At the end of the four weeks, the 75 volunteers were tested again to see if their ability to concentrate improved.
A cognitive test, called CANTAB RVP, is an extremely sensitive attention and concentration test. During the test, volunteers are asked to identify digit sequences (such as 2-4-6, 3-5-7, and 4-6-8) as the numbers appear on the screen. quickly (100 digits per minute). When the sequence of interest appears, volunteers are asked to press a button.
When the researchers badyzed the results of the attention tests, they found that the volunteers who played Decoder had improved their concentration and had obtained better results than either of the other two groups.
The new study is "promising," said Dr. Joseph McGuire, an badistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. "The concept of gamification therapy is very useful, especially for children who play games all the time. It's a great way to integrate therapeutic skills in a fun way. "
Nevertheless, McGuire needs more research to be convinced that this app will help children with ADHD or brain damage. "Children are different from adults and children with ADHD are different from children without ADHD," he said. "It's a nice proof of concept – in healthy adults. They need to test it in children and adults with problems of attention. "
If the set-top box kept its promises and "we could use our cell phones that are usually distractions to create pathways in the brain, that would be phenomenal," said Dr. Marc Moisi, head of the neurosurgery department at the University of Toronto. Detroit hospital receiver at Detroit Medical Center.
Moisy would be very interested to see if the app could help people with traumatic brain injuries.
"They have a lot of trouble with normal day-to-day activities," he said, adding that the lack of concentration caused by a BIT can keep them on track, even with the simplest tasks. "If we could help people with something as simple as playing a video game, that would seem to be the way of the future," he added.
The Decoder game is licensed to the Peak application developer and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store as part of the Peak Brain Training app. (Apple.co/2sBj2l2)
SOURCE: Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience bit.ly/2sF2jgU, online 21 January 2019.
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