Video | Virtual-reality game launched to study Alzheimer’s – and playing it could help ward off the brain disease too
Players of Sea Quest Hero will contribute data for scientific study of dementia, allowing researchers to link what someone can do in the game to what is going on in their brain
Sea Quest Hero is more than just the usual computer game in which players find their way through mazes, shoot and chase creatures – it also doubles as scientists’ latest tool for studying Alzheimer’s disease.
The game – downloadable from Tuesday in its virtual reality version – seeks to stimulate players’ brains through a series of tasks based on memory and orientation skills, while gathering data to research dementia.
One of the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s is loss of navigational skills. But data comparing cognitive response across a broad spectrum of ages is rare, and this is what the game seeks to provide.
The game – billed as the “largest dementia study in history” – has been developed by Deutsche Telekom, Alzheimer’s Research UK and scientists from University College London and the University of East Anglia in the UK.
The mobile version, which came out in 2016, has already been downloaded three million times in 193 countries.