Akili Interactive Labs on Monday reported that its late-stage study of a video game designed to treat kids with ADHD met its primary goal, a big step in the Boston company’s quest to get approval for what it hopes will be the first prescription video game.
In a study of 348 children between the ages of 8 and 12 diagnosed with ADHD, those who played Akili’s action-packed game on a tablet over four weeks saw statistically significant improvements on metrics of attention and inhibitory control, compared to children who were given a different action-driven video game designed as a placebo. The company plans next year to file for approval with the Food and Drug Administration.
“We are directly targeting the key neurological pathways that control attention and impulsivity,” said Akili CEO Eddie Martucci. The study “was meant to be a strong objective test to ask: Is it the targeting we do in the brain or is it general engagement with a treatment that’s exciting and interesting … that actually leads to these targeted effects? And so I think we clearly see that it’s the targeted algorithms that we have.”
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this game looks like garbage. Any game can be used for ADHD because it keeps kids entertained like me. Im only 15 and i have ADHD and games in general are just fine.
ADHD is a highly genetic, brain-based syndrome that has to do with the regulation of a particular set of brain functions and related behaviors.
Oh my gosh. We were just talking about the possibilities. Wonder if this will be something used in the future!
I feel I am already sunk as I watch my son with these games and how he ever knows where the heck he is or is going is beyond me. I get all turned around and they travel all over the place in game. I find it extremely confusing. Yikes 🙂
As someone who dispenses a lot of ADHD meds (adderal, ritalin, vyvanse, focalin, etc..l) I’d LOVE to see this succeed!
How terrible. The video game is based on being in Hellfire.
EXACTLY what struck me first too.
Something SERIOUSLY wrong with the people developing crap like this. It should be stopped or at least quality controlled in some way.
For the best exercise in eye hand coordination and quick thinking watch “Grand Theft Auto V”. Clearly the best and the goriest.
Wait until they start prescribing VIRTUAL REALITY games !!
I am submitted my own device designed to improve academic scores. It will be a software that flashes the structures of organic chemistry compounds at 30 second intervals in preparation for your son’s single most important test as a determinant of his acceptance to med school.
If concentration the goal, then to paraphrase: “nothing concentrates the mind like fear of academic crucifixion”.