Many have no doubt thought of it; now someone's doing it: harnessing video games to biofeedback. Scientists at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) in Norfolk hope to perfect a system for treating today's childhood scourge, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using electronic toys.
Principal investigator Olafur Palsson, a psychologist at EVMS, says there are three types of brain waves you want to manipulate in ADHD: beta activity, involved in concentration; theta waves, associated with unfocused processes such as daydreaming, and what is called the sensorimotor range (SMR). "When SMR activity increases, you quiet down," says Palsson.
The technology--a spin-off of NASA research measuring the brain activity of pilots in flight simulators--feeds signals from brain sensors to a joystick. When the brain waves are moving in the right direction, the joystick becomes easier to control and game performance is enhanced. Best suited to the system, says Palsson, are races or "action games that involve a lot of forward movement," or adventure-explorer games. Those involving aggression and violence would definitely be counterproductive, he says.
Biofeedback has been used for 15 years to treat ADHD and can be an effective alternative to Ritalin, says Palsson. But taking a child for thrice-weekly sessions is costly and time-consuming. The scientists plan to test their system by comparing it with regular biofeedback in a group of 22 children with ADHD. If it proves effective, they hope to simplify it so that ADHD sufferers can just put on a helmet, turn on the game, and battle their illness while flying around the course in an All-American NASCAR race.
Such a system would be a "huge advantage" over drug treatment, says neuropsychiatrist Daniel Amen, who runs the Amen Clinic for Behavioral Medicine in Fairfield, California. "Psychologically, it's better for them" to be able to control their brains themselves, he says.
