Boston-based Akili Interactive Labs — a spin-off of Neuroscape, a lab at UC San Francisco — is conducting medical trials of its video games, which it says can treat a range of mental disorders, reports CNBC.
Neuroscape is an eight-year effort led by its founder and executive director Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, who is also an Akili board member. He says the labs' goals are to find personalized treatment approaches with fewer side effects for neurological disorders.
"Our brain's plasticity, its ability to modify itself, really responds to experience," Dr. Gazzaley told CNBC. "If we can create very targeted experiences that are also adaptive to a person, it can help improve their brain function."
One of Akili's games, called "Project: EVO," is at the last level of Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The lab has also partnered with Pfizer to study how its games can detect signs of Alzheimer's disease.
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