This Is Serious Fun

This Is Serious Fun

This Is Serious Fun

Can videogames equipped with neurofeedback help kids deal with their learning disabilities?

By N'Gai Croal
Newsweek, September 27, 2004

A stitch in time saves nine. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. And videogames will rot your brain. Conventional wisdom? Maybe, but psychologist Dominic Greco is determined to prove that at least one of those sayings is not true. Greco, the 52-year-old founder of CyberLearning Technology, uses neurofeedback-enhanced versions of off-the-shelf videogames like Ratchet & Clank to help treat children and adolescents with attention-deficit disorder or cognitive-processing difficulties. If that sounds like futuristic, space-age technology, you're not far off; CyberLearning Technology has built its system, dubbed S.M.A.R.T. Brain Games, around a neurofeedback patent it obtained exclusively from NASA.

Here's how S.M.A.R.T. Brain Games work. A normal human brain, when awake and focused on an activity, produces a lot of fast brain waves. But people with cognitive-processing or learning disabilities produce large amounts of slower brain waves—like the ones generated when we're sleeping or daydreaming. That makes staying focused extremely difficult.

S.M.A.R.T. Brain Games use a specially designed headgear, with built-in sensors, to monitor the player's brain waves. The child or adolescent operates a regular videogame console like the PlayStation 2, but with a controller that has been modified by CyberLearning Technology. If the player remains focused while speeding through the streets of Tokyo in a racing game like Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, he or she will be able to drive unimpeded. But the moment the youngster's attention wanders, the system steadily reduces the top speed available to the player, causes the controller to rumble and produces atonal sounds, letting the child know that he or she must refocus. Once the kid does, the sounds disappear, the rumble goes away and the child can once again achieve top speed. "We're exercising the brain to a higher level of processing and attention," says Greco, who's been using neurofeedback to work with children since 1990. Though neurofeedback hasn't been studied as extensively as drug therapy, it has fewer side effects, and many families swear by it. Dr. Ali Hashemi of the California-based Attention and Achievement Center cautions that while the principles of neurofeedback are well established, as yet there are no peer-reviewed studies of Greco's methods (though one is expected by the year-end).

Adults can benefit from neurofeedback as well. The Wild Divine Project has released a CD-ROM for Mac and PC called Journey to the Wild Divine, which uses sensors attached to the fingers to monitor skin conductance and heart-rate variability via the computer's USB port. The story-based game teaches things ranging from yogic breathing to meditation through lush visuals that respond to your actions, like lighting a virtual fire by exhaling calmly and smoothly. "I was always frustrated by how boring biofeedback was," says Corwin Bell, Wild Divine's 40-year-old designer. "Raise a bar, make a face smile. It wasn't very entertaining. The challenge for me and my team was to bring in a visual metaphor." Mission accomplished.


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