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Drug-free pain relief game progresses to the next level in clinical trial | The cute game has more than a decade of scientific research into brainwaves and nerve pain behind it


In the ongoing search to find a pain intervention that does away with the need for opioids – and bypasses drugs altogether – a new game-based system has shown huge promise in tackling chronic neuropathic pain. Using a game and a headset, it "trains" patients to rewire brain signals in order to…

They found that four weeks of gameplay with the animated program and accompanying brain-monitoring headset, showed that 75% of participants had a significant reduction in pain – and it matched a level that was either on par with opioids or even better. “Restrictions in the study’s size, design and duration limit our ability to generalize the findings or rule out placebo effects,” said Dr Negin Hesam-Shariati from UNSW’s NeuroRecovery Research Hub. The treatment in question is called PainWave, a novel therapy that combines a game-like app with a headset that monitors the brain, directly feeding back to the on-screen visuals.

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