Cambridge casts a spell on schizophrenia

Cambridge University has developed an iPad game for improving memory function in people who suffer from schizophrenia.

Called Wizard, the app has been licensed through the institution’s tech transfer arm Cambridge Enterprise to Peak, a brain training app developer. Launched last year, Peak recently secured £4.8m ($7m) to increase its team of neuroscientists in a round backed by Creandum, DN Capital, London Venture Partners, and Qualcomm Ventures.

Wizard is designed to be attention-grabbing and easy to play while improving the player’s episodic memory, which can be affected by schizophrenia. In subsequent experiments, researchers found those who had played the game made less errors in memory-based psychological tests.

Barbara Sahakian, a professor at Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry who led the project, said: “We need a way of treating the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, such as problems with episodic memory, but slow progress is being made towards developing a drug treatment. So this proof-of-concept study is important because it demonstrates that the memory game can help where drugs have so far failed. Because the game is interesting, even those patients with a general lack of motivation are spurred on to continue the training.”