A “brain training” game developed in UK may improve the memory of patients with schizophrenia, helping them in their daily lives at home and at work, said researchers on Monday. “We have formulated an iPad game that could drive the neural circuitry behind episodic memory by stimulating the ability to remember where things were on the screen”, Professor Sahakian said. In particular, the episodic memory, that makes people independent in daily activities. This includes remembering where a person parked his or her auto in a multi-level vehicle park after going on shopping for several hours.
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In the meantime, the Wizard game will live on as a training module of Peak, a “personalized self-improvement app” now available on any iOS platform that helps people enhance their memory, attention, problem-solving and language skills. The game rewards progress with additional in-game activities to provide the user with a sense of progression independent of the cognitive training process.
From these results, the team speculates participating patients would be better equipped to function independently in real life, and without suffering the side effects of traditional medication.
However, a new study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, revealed that 22 patients who played the memory game made fewer errors and needed significantly fewer attempts to remember the location of different patterns.
People with schizophrenia often find studying and work hard due to cognitive impairments.
Cambridge’s Wizard program has now been adapted by the developers of a well-known brain training app known as Peak in order to produce scientifically tested modules for cognitive training.
Once the 4 weeks were done, the volunteers had their memory tested and were found to display considerable improvement in their episodic memory.
Sahakian said that the proof-of-concept study is important because it demonstrated that the memory game could help where drugs have so far failed.
Scientists at Cambridge University said tests on a small number of patients who played the game over four weeks found they had improvements in memory and learning. The game is highly interesting so even those patients with a general lack of motivation are driven to continue the training.
They also improved their scores on the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale, which doctors use to rate the social, occupational and psychological functioning of adults.
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Another member of the research team, Peter Jones, added that further studies with larger sample sizes would need to be carried out to confirm the current findings, but that: “in conjunction with medication and current psychological therapies, [Wizard] could help people with schizophrenia minimise the impact of their illness on everyday life”. Rights to the game were licensed to Peak by Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialization company. “State-of-the-art neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, combined with the innovative approach at Peak, will help bring the games industry to a new level and promote the benefits of cognitive enhancement”. The researchers price is at £10.99 (€15.62 / $17.16).
