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videogames

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

June 30, 2022 by SharpBrains

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 of dif­fer­ent types of screen time (watch­ing, social­iz­ing, or gam­ing) on children’s intel­li­gence while con­trol­ling for the con­found­ing effects of genet­ic dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tion and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus … Broad­ly, our results are in line with research on the mal­leabil­i­ty of cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties from envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, such as cog­ni­tive train­ing and the Fly­nn effect.”

Fas­ci­nat­ing! Hav­ing said that…

#2. Large neu­roimag­ing study finds social iso­la­tion to be an ear­ly indi­ca­tor of increased demen­tia risk

“Social inter­ac­tion is huge­ly impor­tant. One study found that the size of our social group is actu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the vol­ume of the orbitofrontal cor­tex (involved in social cog­ni­tion and emo­tion). But how many friends do we need? … It is hard to argue with the fact that humans are social ani­mals and gain enjoy­ment from con­nect­ing with oth­ers, what­ev­er age we are. But, as we are increas­ing­ly uncov­er­ing, it also cru­cial for the health of our cognition.”

#3. UC study finds near-trans­fer of cog­ni­tive train­ing to be nec­es­sary (yet not suf­fi­cient) for far-trans­fer, broad­er benefits

“Some peo­ple do very well in train­ing, such as play­ing a video game, but they don’t show near trans­fer, per­haps because they are using high­ly spe­cif­ic strate­gies,” said first author Anja Pahor … “For these peo­ple, far trans­fer is unlike­ly. By bet­ter under­stand­ing why this type of mem­o­ry train­ing or ‘inter­ven­tion’ works for some peo­ple but not oth­ers, we can move for­ward with a new gen­er­a­tion of work­ing-mem­o­ry train­ing games or use approach­es that are more tai­lored to indi­vid­u­als’ needs”

#4. Please help us recruit 30,000 adults for a UC Cit­i­zen Sci­ence project on cog­ni­tive training

“In our ongo­ing large-scale study (note: the one right above) we aim to recruit 30,000 adults who are moti­vat­ed and will­ing to help us bet­ter under­stand the fac­tors that under­lie learn­ing out­comes using a vari­ety of train­ing par­a­digms and out­come mea­sures. Our endeav­or will ulti­mate­ly con­tribute to the per­son­al­iza­tion of cog­ni­tive train­ing so that, hope­ful­ly, any­one who would like to improve their cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing will be able to choose the approach that may fit them best.” — researchers Susanne Jaeg­gi, Anja Pahor, Aaron Seitz @ UC Irvine/ Riverside

#5. Trend: Esports teams har­ness cog­ni­tive tests to bet­ter match play­er to task and to iden­ti­fy train­ing opportunities

Esports are bor­row­ing a page from Pro Sports’ book … we would­n’t be sur­prised to see the inverse tak­ing place too in just a few years.

#6. Dos and Don’ts of Ther­a­py on the Go: Nav­i­gat­ing the use of apps for men­tal health care

“For those with­out severe men­tal ill­ness, app-based ther­a­py may be help­ful in match­ing clients with a pro­fes­sion­al famil­iar with a range of prob­lems and stres­sors. This makes apps attrac­tive to those with anx­i­ety and mild to mod­er­ate depres­sion. They also appeal to peo­ple who wouldn’t ordi­nar­i­ly seek out office-based ther­a­py, but who want help with life issues such as mar­i­tal prob­lems and work-relat­ed stress.”

#7. AI-enabled chat­bot Wysa receives FDA Break­through Device des­ig­na­tion for patients with chron­ic pain, depres­sion and anxiety

Let’s talk!

#8. And here’s the Brain Teas­er: Ready to stim­u­late those neu­rons in your tem­po­ral lobes?

 

Wish­ing you and yours a healthy and fun summer!

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, brain health, brain-teaser, chronic pain, cognition, cognitive, cognitive-functioning, Cognitive-tests, Cognitive-Training, depression, emotion, FDA, mental health, mental health care, neuroimaging, social isolation, videogames, work-related stress, working-memory-training, Wysa

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

March 7, 2022 by Dr. David Rabiner

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 that exces­sive video game play may be a risk fac­tor for the devel­op­ment of ADHD symp­toms. Oth­er research sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reverse cau­sa­tion, i.e., that ADHD symp­toms pre­dicts the devel­op­ment of exces­sive video game play. [Read more…] about Cana­di­an study finds causal link between time play­ing videogames at age 12 and ADHD symp­toms at age 13

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: adhd, ADHD-symptoms, adolescence, screen time, screens, video-games, videogames

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

June 10, 2020 by SharpBrains

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 afford­able, acces­si­ble and engaging.

Tests of a new gen­er­a­tion of prod­ucts that com­bine advances in wear­able bio­met­ric sen­sors with the immersive—and fun—qualities of vir­tu­al-real­i­ty gam­ing have increas­ing­ly demon­strat­ed effec­tive­ness in help­ing anx­ious sub­jects achieve states of calm, among oth­er ther­a­peu­tic uses.

[Read more…] about Vir­tu­al-real­i­ty gam­ing + afford­able biofeed­back = Anx­i­ety ther­a­py for all?

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: anxiety, biofeedback, biometric sensors, Covid-19 pandemic, DEEP, Psychology, therapy, videogames, virtual-reality

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

March 19, 2018 by SharpBrains

___

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

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Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Akili, behavior, brain, brain-enhancement, brain-function, depression, digital brain health, digital health, digital startups, digital therapeutics, evidence-based, insomniac, Mindstrong Health, Pear Therapeutics, pharma, sensors, smartphone apps, software app, therapies, videogames

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

December 12, 2017 by SharpBrains

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 and reward mech­a­nisms as stan­dard videogames; how­ev­er, it fea­tures mech­a­nisms to act on neur­al sys­tems and algo­rithms that dial the lev­el of stim­u­lus up or down, meet­ing the needs of the patient. [Read more…] about Pend­ing FDA review and approval, research find­ings pave way for Akili’s EVO to become first brain train­ing plat­form pre­scribed for ADHD

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Filed Under: Attention & ADD/ADHD, Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Akili, Akili Interactive, attention, Brain-Training, cognitive, depression, digital medicine, digital therapeutic, digital therapies, FDA, impulsivity, memory, neural systems, STARS-ADHD, videogames

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

May 5, 2017 by SharpBrains

—

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 for gam­ing such as Wii, and Xbox Kinect can boost brain func­tion­ing in peo­ple with [Read more…] about Study: Phys­i­cal­ly-active video games (‘exergames’) boost cog­ni­tion more than phys­i­cal activ­i­ty alone

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Filed Under: Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: active gaming, boost brain functioning, Brain-Fitness, Brain-health, Brain-Training, cognition, cognitive effort, exergames, impairment, neurological, neurological impairment, Physical-activity, videogames, wii, Xbox Kinect

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