The term gamification, which means applying game design principles in other contexts, became a buzzword about 15 years ago, mainly driven by companies offering to gamify business processes.

The approach aims to leverage game mechanics to increase engagement and motivation ("Get on the leader board!" "Gain power-ups!" "Level up your character!"), so it naturally became popular in education. Multiple studies show that incorporating game elements into learning tasks can boost results.

The idea snowballed, as shown by the number of conferences dedicated to these ideas. It is now also used in medicine, usually to boost treatment compliance. But the potential of games for science doesn’t stop at gamification. The therapeutic potential of different kinds of games is being explored in areas ranging from mental health to stroke.

In fact, the number of ways in which scientists are exploiting various aspects of games today has exploded. It’s happening in increasingly diverse fields, in wildly differing ways.

Here are just a few recent examples:

An interactive game that trains people to alter brainwaves associated with chronic nerve pain, using neurofeedback, has shown promise in a trial published in June. Neurofeedback is a therapeutic technique that measures brainwaves and provides real-time visual or audio feedback to enable users to learn to control their own brain activity.

The researchers’ previous work suggested that changes in brain activity in the thalamus linked to chronic nerve pain interfere with communication between the thalamus and other regions, especially the somatosensory cortex, which registers pain.

The technology, called PainWaive, teaches users how to regulate this abnormal activity, with the app responding to changes in users’ brainwaves in real time. The kit consists of a bespoke headset........

© Psychology Today