The Brain Garden Serious Game: genetics, environment, behaviors and the brain

Digital Artefacts, Llc, Iowa City IA

Investigators

Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As the average lifespan increases, staying mentally sharp into old age is becoming a major concern for millions of individuals. Neuroscience has developed a deep understanding of the factors influencing life-long brain health, with both genetic and lifestyle factors playing a large role how our brains age. For example, cardiovascular health, education, eating habits, and stress have all been shown to directly influence cognitive capacity and brain function. As a result, behavioral choices important for maintaining a healthy body are also important for maintaining a healthy brain. However, disseminating this information and influencing behavioral change in a large portion of the population has been difficult. To this end, the aims of this study are to build a game-based informational tool to educate middle and high school students about the factors that influence how their brain ages, and how the choices they make can directly impact their brain health. The `Brain Garden' is based on an exhibit designed by Digital Artefacts for the National Academy of Sciences' Marian Koshland Science Museum, and presents individuals with scenarios and choices illustrating how genetics, environment, and behaviors influence and shape brain development and cognitive ability. The application will be designed for use on both the web and mobile devices, taking advantage of the reach and graphics capabilities of these media to convey information in an engaging manner that will lead to better education and increased likelihood of behavioral change. The specific aims of this proposal are as follows: Aim 1: Adapt the `Brain Garden' to a standalone game for use on the web and mobile devices. We will adapt original content to align with STEM middle school and high school curriculum, in addition to adding account management infrastructure and gameplay attributes aimed at increasing engagement (e.g, scoring and leaderboards). This will be conducted in collaboration with the Koshland Science Museum and vetted by their scientific review board. Aim 2: Evaluate the ability of the Brain Garden application to increase users' knowledge of how genetics, environment, and behavior shape brain development and cognitive ability. Evaluation will be performed through facilitated focus groups comprised of visitors to the Koshland Science Museum's Idea Lab (n = 100), as well as online by visitors to the Koshland Science Museum website (n = 200). Prior to interacting with the game participants will be given a `pre-test' that asks a series of basic questions regarding their knowledge of how specific factors influence brain health, without performance feedback. They will then interact with the game for three rounds of game play, approximately 30 minutes, and complete a post- test containing a set of questions that assess identical content areas as those encountered in the pre-test, along with additional questions designed to probe their ability to extrapolate the key messages from the game to novel situations. For each user, change scores will be calculated by subtracting pre-test scores from post- test scores, allowing us to assess gameplay-related to changes in knowledge.