Hmm, I don't know. Most videogames I play these days give me a headache.
Dr. Deborah Stokes recommends a brain-controlled videogame to relieve migraines, and she says that 70 percent of her patients treated with this method have reduced or eliminated their medications.
Before you get your hopes up, you should know that this isn't some Call of Duty 4-type brain game; the head-attached sensors let players use brain waves to move simple objects, like a spaceship around the screen. If brain patterns are irregular, the spaceship will also have irregular movement patterns. The goal is to even out wave patterns to move the ship back in place.
"It seems to give them some sort of stability so they don't have migraines or meltdowns or whatever it is they're having problems with," said Stokes to NBC.
Stokes has no idea why it works, but it does. The best part is that this treatment is medication free.
This is interesting, but I think it will be awhile before we're playing first-person shooters with brain waves. These would give new meaning to the term "head shot," though.
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
11:02 AM on 12.12.2007
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Announcer: HEADSHOT!
Me: GAH my HEAD! *Bigger migraine than when the program started*
Head asplodes.
Good job doctor.
overall though, how the hell do you not know how this works? That amazes me.
The brain is so complex, and there are so many million and millions of different little parts and connections and pathways that we simply don't have the technology yet to understand how it all works and interacts. I mean, we have the basics down, like "This big section here does stuff with movement", but we just don't have the ability or technology yet to figure out what exactly is going on. Even brain scans and things like that will mostly only tell you what parts of the brain are being activated when you do certain things, not why or how they're activated. Neuroscience and neuropsychology are still very young.
Too bad you'll need a brainwave detecting device to play it. Virtualboy 2.0?
Conversely, I'm nearly sure that playing Madden cultivated my hypertension . . .
Maybe during the week after the two days as the migraine lingers...
Although, once i stop playing it's like a trillion time worse due to my poor gaming posture -_-
Videogames cause me to puke and to get headaches. Not to cure them.
I have a real love/hate relationship with 3D environment games.
I used to have unpleasant intrusive thoughts several years ago (I got the right medication thanks to the grace of God, and I mean it), and I found that my only release during that nasty period was concentrating on playing a game.