Exploring Video Games as Medicine at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021

For someone so passionate about computer graphics and games, SIGGRAPH Asia is an event I look forward to all year. It brings together some of the most respected technical and creative people from around the world to exchange learnings at the intersection of science, art, gaming, education and emerging technologies – and I was honored to join their ranks as I shared our vision for video games as medicine.

At Akili, we believe that brain function is the next frontier in medicine. We know that cognitive health is just as important as physical health, and this is especially true when we think about the current state of the world. Cognitive and mental health is declining across society, exacerbated by the pandemic and the proliferation of technology1. Awareness of the issue has reached an all-time high, with a recent national emergency and mental health crisis declared among our nation’s young people. This is a major problem that must be addressed head-on.

We also know that it is our experiences that create change in the brain – sometimes bad experiences like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sometimes great experiences held in our favorite memories. We founded Akili on the premise that we could build controlled, interactive experiences to improve cognition for the better. Unlike passive digital experiences, like watching a movie, video games are uniquely positioned as ideal vessels to deliver prescription digital therapeutics for several reasons.

They enable impactful experiences in a familiar format. We're playing games whether we know it or not – even people who don’t identify as gamers use technology like mobile devices daily, interacting with interfaces that utilize the reward and feedback mechanics developed over decades in the games industry. In this way, games are becoming ubiquitous in the same way that smartphones have.
They’re infinitely customizable and personalized. Unlike traditional pharmaceuticals, digital therapeutic technology allows for constant feedback, information and data to learn about patients and their diseases at an incredibly high rate. This means we can adapt, change, and customize these treatments to each individual so they can receive the best possible medicine (and experience) for their individual needs.
They provide a built-in community. All the progress in emerging technologies and advancements in computer graphics that those at SIGGRAPH are making can be leveraged to improve our treatments for patients. By partnering with like-minded creators, we’re looking to expand and grow our ability to make these game-based medicines both more efficacious and engaging, and simply… fun to play.

Melding two very different industries – entertainment and medicine – is no easy feat. However, the fellow attendees I connected with at SIGGRAPH not only understood the weight of this challenge but also how our collective advancements in technology can build this mission further, reinventing the way we engage with our medicine.

Conferences like SIGGRAPH are critical for our industry to collaborate in new ways, especially as we look towards the future of our industry. We see a great opportunity ahead to strengthen our partnerships and are actively engaging with gaming companies, and beyond about new ideas, not only with the potential of integrating our technology into other games but to develop this new category of medicine even further to support other disease states. The sooner we have more engaging, accessible, safer and effective treatments, the better we can support those living with cognitive impairments and boldly challenge the status quo medicine.

1Hale et al; 2020, Epidemiology; Osiurak et al; 2018, Frontiers in Psych; Firth et al; 2019, World Psych; Garriges et al., 2020, Journal of Infection; Helm et al; 2020, The New England Journal of Medicine; Jaywant et al; 2021, Neuropsychopharmacology; Kaseda et al; 2020, The Clinical Neurophysiologist; Rogers et al; 2020, Lancet Psychiatry