‘Software instead of pills’: Video game developed at University of Utah to treat depression receives $7.5M grant

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“We’re doing the work of medicine here,” said Roger Altizer, director of digital medicine at the Center for Medical Innovation. “And it just happens to be with software instead of with pills.”

The success of Neurogrow’s clinical trials will determine the next steps for its release, developers say.

Morimoto and her team received the grant in April and began the clinical trials in August. She said receiving the grant marked “the crowning achievement” of her career. “We’re kind of artificially coming in from the outside and making you work out these parts of the brain,” Morimoto said. “I hate it when people say. ‘Oh, I’m rejuvenating your brain,’ or, ‘We’re gonna make you young again’,” Morimoto said. “That isn’t what we’re doing at all. We are strengthening your ability to utilize these parts of your brain that have become less useful as you age.”

Morimoto wrote the request for the grant “from the heart,” against the advice of some researchers she knew. In medical research, it’s common for grant providers to ask researchers to update their methodology upon their first request for funding, Morimoto said. The National Mental Health Institute approved Morimoto’s request for the five-year grant on her first attempt.

After, patients take another cognitive test to see what, if anything, has changed. Trial administrators then make follow up calls for the following two weeks to see how patients are doing, followed by voluntary three-month and one-year follow ups for patients that want to be evaluated again. “We really hope that we get as many people as possible to give this a shot,” Morimoto said. “And, you know, they really don’t have anything to lose. There’s really no side effects other than sometimes getting a little bit frustrated.”

 

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Thanks for the awesome coverage and helping us get the news out about digital medicine, and specifically about how we can help older adults with depression of the neuroflex.

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