VR Game Helps Identify Alzheimer’s

It appears that virtual reality games can help identify those genetically at higher risk of Alzheimer’s and games can produce significant and valuable data.

It appears that virtual reality games can help identify those genetically at higher risk of Alzheimer’s and games can produce significant and valuable data. The experiment here evolves around Sea Hero Quest — a mobile VR game developed by Glitchers in partnership with Deutsche Telekom, Alzheimer’s Research UK, University College London and the University of East Anglia.

A recent press release states that the team was able to translate every 0.5 seconds of gameplay into useful data with every two minutes being reportedly equal to five hours of lab-based research. What is truly amazing is that since it launched three years ago, Sea Hero Quest has generated more than 1,700 years’ worth of lab-based research.

One of the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s appears to be loss of navigational skills, and Sea Hero Quest can challenge players to follows charts and directions, and that appears to be of great help.

The UEA team collected data from 27,108 UK players aged between 50 and 75 (the age group most vulnerable to the degenerative condition). The data was then compared with a smaller group of 60 people undergoing lab-based genetic testing.

In the lab group, 31 participants are said to carry the APOE4 gene, making those people three times more likely to be affected by Alzheimer’s. The APOE4 carriers performed worse on the game’s spatial navigation tasks, UEA’s Professor Michael Hornberger said.

“This is really important because these are people with no memory problems,” the professor said. “Meanwhile, those without the APOE4 gene traveled roughly the same distance as the 27,000 people forming the baseline score. This difference in performance was particularly pronounced where the space to navigate was large and open.

It means that we can detect people who are at genetic risk of Alzheimer’s based on how they play the game.”

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