New research suggests that people diagnosed with schizophrenia can use video games to take control of their verbal hallucinations.
Researchers from King’s College London and the University of Roehampton found that the part of the brain connected to verbal hallucinations of schizophrenic people can be managed by video games.
As reported by the BBC, in the experiment, patients tried to control their symptoms, particularly verbal hallucinations, by playing a video game whilst being in an MRI scanner. They used their own mental strategies to play the game and this enabled them to turn the volume down on the external voices that they heard in their heads.
Dr Natasza Orlov, from King’s College London, said: “The patients know when the voices are about to start — they can feel it, so we want them to immediately put this aid into effect to lessen them, or stop the voices completely.”
“Although the study sample size is small and we lacked a control group, these results are promising,” he added. “We are now planning to conduct a randomised controlled study to test this technique in a larger sample.”
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