This Is Serious Fun; Can videogames equipped with neurofeedback help kids deal with their learning disabilities?(Cover Story)

Byline: N'Gai Croal

A stitch in time saves nine. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. And videogames will rot your brain. Conventional wisdom? Maybe, but psychologist Dominic Greco is determined to prove that at least one of those sayings is not true. Greco, the 52-year-old founder of CyberLearning Technology, uses neurofeedback-enhanced versions of off-the-shelf videogames like Ratchet & Clank to help treat children and adolescents with attention-deficit disorder or cognitive-processing difficulties. If that sounds likefuturistic, space-age technology, you're not far off; CyberLearning Technology has built its system, dubbed S.M.A.R.T. Brain Games, around a neurofeedback patent it obtained exclusively from NASA.

Here's how S.M.A.R.T. Brain Games work. A normal human brain, when awake and focused on an activity, produces a lot of fast brain waves. But people with cognitive-processing or learning disabilities produce large amounts of slower brain waves--like the ones generated when we're sleeping or daydreaming. That makes staying focused extremely difficult.

S.M.A.R.T. Brain Games use specially designed headgear, with built-in sensors, to monitor the player's brain waves. The child or adolescent operates a regular videogame console like the PlayStation 2, but with a controller that has been modified by CyberLearning Technology. If the player remains focused while speeding through the streets of Tokyo in a racing game like Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, he or she will be able to drive unimpeded. But the moment the youngster's attention wanders, the system steadily ...