The Brain-Hacking Alternative to Ritalin

It's widely accepted that things like brain teasers and crossword puzzles can sharpen the mind. But imagine if you could actually see how they do that on a neurological level, by monitoring a person's brain while they're playing. With that feedback loop, you could design games specifically for boosting your mental chops or treating cognitive medical conditions.

Portable EEG headsets are bringing that scenario closer to reality, as the headsets continue to get less expensive and easier to use. Researchers are developing videogames that can improve how the brain functions based on real-time brainwave feedback.

The strategy is most commonly used for kids with ADHD, in order to help them improve focus, memory, and attention. And there's plenty of demand for an alternative, drug-free treatment, to avoid the growing problem of over-prescribing medication and getting kids hooked on stimulants at a young age.

Here's how the games work: the sensors attached to the skull read your brain's electrical activity, and can detect things like your attention level. They then send that information, via Bluetooth, to the game software. Researchers use the biofeedback to create games that are designed to stimulate the brain in the right ways to get the desired behavior. What’s more, with a steady stream of brainwave feedback being sent through the application, the game can update in real-time based on what your mind is doing—like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" for behavior therapy.

One of the leaders in the emerging neurotraining field is Australian software company Neurocog. They’ve created a magic-themed game called Focus Pocus designed to exercise kids’ brains to treat ADHD. To train their impulse controls, kids try to zap goblins in a haunted forest. For memory practice, they have to cast hexes on monsters or remember where they left spell book in the library. For attention control, they try to focus on balancing on a flying a broomstick. You get the idea.

At this point there's only limited research into neurotraining—some of which comes out of the University of Wollongong, Neurocog’s research partner. But as more studies are conducted, we could develop mind-controlled videogames that effectively treat other mental conditions, like anxiety—or even nonmedical skills like learning music or improving performance in school. That's a crazy and not-totally-comfortable future to imagine—essentially hacking kids' brains based on their cognitive strengths and weaknesses.

It's heading in that direction. With Focus Pocus, the EEG data's recorded and regular reports are given to parents so they can monitor how their kid is doing, and you’re able adjust the difficulty level of the games based on the user's ability. Doctors in Finland are already prescribing therapy videogames to patients with ADHD. The doctors analyze the patient's brain, then decide accordingly what activity needs to be stimulated, and design the games with that specific goal in mind.

For now, they're tackling things like focus and attention span, but based on how the brain reacts and as more of the brain is mapped, the possibilities are opening wider and wider.