According to a new study, patients with the mental disorder called schizophrenia can be given mental training with the help of video games to control self-destructive delusions.
Research has shown that through video games, patients can control the part of their brain that controls verbal hallucinations.
In this small-scale study, patients were able to safely land a rocket while playing a video game while they were in an MRI scanner with the machine attached to the part of their brain that Connects to the human voice.
By playing the game, the patients learned techniques to help them control the imaginary voices in their daily lives.
But because the research was conducted on a fairly small scale, its findings are yet to be validated.
A joint research team from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry and Psychiatry and the University of Roehampton said that with the help of this technique, patients suffering from schizophrenia could also control imaginary voices in their minds that are not affected by drugs.
People who suffer from this disease have an abnormal increase in their hearing power, due to which they are very sensitive to any kind of sound.
The study included 12 patients who experienced distressing noises in their daily lives, a common symptom of schizophrenia.
In the study, patients were asked to use their minds while attached to an MRI scanner and move a rocket from one place to another in a video game, and the researchers found that by doing so, the patients were able to use their minds to move their rockets from place to place. managed to ignore the imaginary voices.
Dr Natasza Arlov, from King's College, said: 'Patients know when they will hear voices. They can feel it. So we wanted them to use this technique as soon as they knew the voices were coming to ignore the voices coming from the mind.'
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