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Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)聽may be able learn to focus better by practising a video game that is controlled by their minds.

Concentration problems are common among children with ADHD. Stimulant drugs like Ritalin and Adderall can help, but they sometimes cause side-effects like insomnia and moodiness.

at the Duke-National University of Singapore Medical School and her colleagues wondered if video games could offer another way to improve focus in children with ADHD.

They developed a video game called CogoLand in which players control a screen avatar with their minds. To do this, they wear a headband fitted with electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors that monitor their electrical brain activity.

A machine learning algorithm interprets the EEG signals and lets players mentally guide their avatar around the screen. The game rewards concentration 鈥� for example, when the headband detects the player focusing harder, the avatar can run faster and collect more tokens. This feedback should make the game more reinforcing than regular video games, says Zhou.

Pay attention

Zhou and her colleagues recently tested the game in 18 children with ADHD. Each participant played CogoLand for 30 minutes three times聽a week for 8 weeks.

By the end of the study, the participants showed greater improvements in an attention test than a comparison group of 11 children with ADHD who did not play the video game.

These improvements appeared to correlate with changes in brain activity. A brain imaging technique called fMRI found that children who benefited most from the game exhibited the greatest activity changes in their brain鈥檚 attention-processing network.

The findings hint that the video game exploits the brain鈥檚 鈥減lasticity鈥� 鈥� the ability to adapt and change in response to training, says Zhou. Its advantages include being safe, easy to learn, and suitable for playing at home, she says.

Her team is now evaluating the game in a larger clinical trial of children with ADHD.