title: Counter striking psychosis: Commercial video games as potential treatment in schizophrenia? A systematic review of neuroimaging studies.
abstract: Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic, and strongly disabling neuropsychiatric disorder, characterized by cognitive decline, positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms respond well to antipsychotic medication and psycho-social interventions, in contrast to negative symptoms and neurocognitive impairments. Cognitive deficits have been linked to a poorer outcome and hence specific cognitive remediation therapies have been proposed. Their effectiveness is nowadays approved and neurobiological correlates have been reconfirmed by brain imaging studies. Interestingly, recent MRI work showed that commercial video games modified similar brain areas as these specialized training programs. If gray matter increases and functional brain modulations would translate in better cognitive and every day functioning, commercial video game training could be an enjoyable and economically interesting treatment option for patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. This systematic review summarizes advances in the area with emphasis on imaging studies dealing with brain changes upon video game training and contrasts them to conventional cognitive remediation. Moreover, we discuss potential challenges therapeutic video game development and research would have to face in future treatment of schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Department of Clinical Research (DKF), Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, 4012 Basel, Switzerland. Electronic address: claudia.suenderhauf@upkbs.ch.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Suenderhauf
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Department of Clinical Research (DKF), Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, 4012 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Department of Clinical Research (DKF), Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, 4012 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lenz
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Department of Clinical Research (DKF), Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, 4012 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Undine E
authors.initials: UE
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.affiliation: Neuropsychiatry and Brain Imaging Group, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Department of Clinical Research (DKF), Wilhelm Klein-Strasse 27, 4012 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Borgwardt
mesh_terms: D003072:Cognition Disorders; D006801:Humans; D059906:Neuroimaging; D012559:Schizophrenia; D018910:Video Games
keywords: Brain plasticity; Cognitive remediation therapy; MRI; Positive and negative symptoms; Schizophrenia; Video game addiction; Video game induced violence; Video games