DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706180561

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   68 lines

NASA VIDEO GAME COULD HELP SOME WHO SUFFER FROM ATTENTION DISORDERSTHE PROGRAM, USED ON PILOTS, CHANGES INTENSITY DEPENDING ON A PLAYER'S FOCUS.

A training system that monitors the brain activity of pilots may also help people with attention deficit disorder, a NASA official said Tuesday.

The technology was developed at NASA Langley to determine when pilots are engaged or bored by their environments. Through a recently developed video game, that same technology could help children work through a disorder that limits attention span and learning.

Alan T. Pope, the NASA research scientist who developed the technology, spoke of his work's potential during a symposium on Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder at Old Dominion University.

Well aware of the frustration endured by families touched by the disorder, Pope stressed that NASA has not produced a cure.

``I don't want to raise false hopes,'' he said. ``What we have here is a potential.''

NASA's objective is to find out how engaged pilots are in their work - which Pope said is especially important in the age of automation. There are long stretches in flights during which pilots may be inactive.

The video game is designed to monitor that engagement and encourage brain activity that reflects good attention.

If the subject is focused, the difficulty of the game decreases. If attention lapses, the game getsharder, hopefully recapturing the attention of the player.

If the game proves valid during testing, it could make a promising non-drug ADHD therapy more accessible to children, Pope said.

Existing ADHD therapy retrains people's brains by leading them through a series of tasks. This therapy runs for several sessions, said Olafur S. Palsson, director of the behavioral medicine clinic at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

But the process is tedious.

``Before, the child was going through a boring chore,'' Palsson said. ``But (this may) lure a child into the right kind of brain activity instead of having a technician urging the kid on.''

The technology will be tested this fall at the EVMS behavioral medicine center.

``This is very exciting,'' Palsson said.

Palsson has already explored a similar neurological treatment used to treat epileptic patients. The treatment decreases the activity of slower brain waves, which are overabundant in ADHD sufferers, and stimulates faster brain waves.

While drug treatments of ADHD such as Ritalin and Dexadrine are more widespread, Palsson said this retraining treatment is practiced by many clinics and private practices.

Palsson said the treatment may work, but there has not been enough study due to lack of funding and solid precedent for the work.

``The evidence is amazingly slim,'' said Palsson. ``Much of the work is unpublished. That does not mean the evidence is not impressive. It is.''

Palsson, like Pope, stressed the danger of overstating the technology's potential. But he said that if the research shows good results, it could change the way attention deficit disorder is treated.

ADHD is marked by a habitual inability to pay attention. The disorder, which usually develops in childhood, can hinder learning, following directions and memory.

Hyperactivity is a behavior that regularly accompanies the other symptoms of attention deficit. It is not considered a separate disorder. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

RICHARD L. DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot

NASA scientist Alan T. Pope explains how his video game is used to

test a pilot's brain activity at an international symposium at ODU.

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