Update: Playing videogames may be more cognitively beneficial than other forms of screentime like social media, watching videos/ TV

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing time­ly brain & men­tal health news and a fun brain teas­er to put your tem­po­ral lobes to good use :-) #1. Study finds that play­ing videogames may be more cog­ni­tive­ly ben­e­fi­cial for chil­dren than oth­er forms of screen­time (social media, watch­ing videos/ TV) “Here, we esti­mat­ed the impact…

Read More

Canadian study finds causal link between time playing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symptoms at age 13

Recent stud­ies have linked screen time — includ­ing video game play — to con­cern­ing out­comes in chil­dren, includ­ing low self-esteem, low life sat­is­fac­tion, and depres­sive symp­toms. Screen time has also been found to be cor­re­lat­ed with symp­toms of ADHD in chil­dren and ado­les­cents, even when ear­li­er atten­tion dif­fi­cul­ties are tak­en into account. These find­ings suggest…

Read More

Virtual-reality gaming + affordable biofeedback = Anxiety therapy for all?

Videogame Tech­nol­o­gy Could Bring Biofeed­back Ther­a­py to the Liv­ing Room (The Wall Street Jour­nal): For decades, use of biofeed­back to help suf­fer­ers of anx­i­ety, among oth­er psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tions, has large­ly been lim­it­ed to clin­i­cal set­tings with expensive—and some­what tedious—medical equip­ment. Now, with an assist from devel­op­ers of vir­­tu­al-real­i­­ty games, effec­tive ther­a­peu­tic biofeed­back is becom­ing more…

Read More

Reinventing Brain Medicine, Pharma adopts Digital Therapeutics: Evidence-based videogames, smartphone apps, and sensors

___ From app store to drug store, dig­i­tal health is redefin­ing pharma’s pipeline (STAT): “The pitch­es always sound­ed promis­ing: A new soft­ware app could track glu­cose lev­els for peo­ple with dia­betes or soothe the brains of insom­ni­acs. Most phar­ma exec­u­tives would polite­ly smile and nod, but then park their mon­ey some­where else. Not anymore.

Read More

Pending FDA review and approval, research findings pave way for Akili’s EVO to become first brain training platform prescribed for ADHD

Akili Achieves Pri­ma­ry Effi­ca­cy End­point in ADHD Tri­al (MD mag­a­zine): “Boston-based Akili Inter­ac­tive has announced top-line results from the STARS-ADHD piv­otal study of its inves­ti­ga­tion­al dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic med­i­cine AKL-T01, in treat­ment of pedi­atric atten­­tion-deficit/hy­per­ac­­tiv­i­­ty dis­or­der (ADHD)…The dig­i­tal med­i­cine, AKL-T01, is a video game for patients to play on tablet devices. It uses the same storytelling…

Read More

Study: Physically-active video games (‘exergames’) boost cognition more than physical activity alone

— Active gam­ing is good for brain health and mem­o­ry, finds study (Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter release): “Video games which involve phys­i­cal activ­i­ty sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost our brain health as we get old­er, accord­ing to new research led by Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter experts. Study authors Dr Emma Stan­more and Joseph Firth say sys­tems that use phys­i­cal activity…

Read More