This video game could help diagnose Alzheimer's disease earlier

Conceived in 2016,

is a smartphone game of a special kind.

It aims to study the ability of players to orient themselves in a three-dimensional space.

The goal is to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease, explains

.

Loss of sense of direction is one of the first signs of dementia in humans.

The game Sea Hero Quest made it possible to collect data from 4 million players: poor players were often carriers of the ApoE4 gene, which multiplies by 3 the risk of having Alzheimer's one day.

pic.twitter.com/gPiGhfClfC

- You do not know what ?!

(@tuCpakoa) September 18, 2019

Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent

By clicking on "

", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners

I ACCEPT

And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.

More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.

Four million players between 2016 and 2019

Positioning and movement in space are among the first cognitive abilities to be affected in people with dementia

recalls

.

Therefore, the goal of the video game is to collect data, compile it and analyze it.

To do this, more than four million players around the world downloaded and tested

between 2016 and 2019.

The principle of the title developed in collaboration with caregivers is to memorize on a map the route of a boat in order to make it pass through specific points.

Each player must, within a limited time, guide the boat in a three-dimensional universe following a determined route.

Several levels of difficulty are provided.

The results are then transmitted to the researchers.

Cultural and demographic factors

Having a bad sense of direction is not necessarily synonymous with dementia, assures the English-language media.

Cultural and demographic factors also come into play. To obtain conclusive results, the doctors were able to compare the performance of hundreds of thousands of players with the same characteristics.

The data collected by the researchers also demonstrated that players who grew up in an urban environment have on average a less good sense of direction than those from a rural environment, regardless of their age, gender or skill level. 'education.

The scientists finally clarified that it is during childhood that each individual permanently shapes his sense of direction.

Health

Aging: Can longer daytime naps be an early sign of dementia?

Health

Lille: A dopamine "tap" in the brain to treat Parkinson's disease

• Alzheimer's

• Video games

• smartphone

• Sickness

• Researchers

• Health

• high tech