Video Game Re-Mission 2 Helps Children Fight Cancer

Researchers have come up with a simpler way to fight cancer and children, no doubt, are going to love it. Scientists have developed a series of video games to help children fight cancer. The full set of free online games titled Re-Mission 2 was unveiled to the world recently by HopeLab, a nonprofit organization.

According to HopeLab, playing the game Re-Mission 2 will bring a positive impact on young patients by improving their positive emotion, self-efficiency and motivation to follow chemotherapy. The new product is a modified version of the organization's Re-Mission video game launched in 2006.

The development of the latest Re-Mission game is based on a study reported in PLoS ONE in 2012. The study, carried out by researchers from HopeLab and Standford University, found that playing the 2006 game Re-Mission stimulated brain circuits related to positive motivation in patients. In the background information provided in the study, researchers also cited a similar kind of brain stimulation, motivating patients in another study to dutifully follow their treatment.

The game is as effective as medical treatments and helps cancer patients fight and overcome their disease with the help of tools like chemotherapy, antibiotics and immunity cells in the body, the authorities said. The game will be particularly helpful to patients who fail to follow the treatments consistently.

According to Dr. Steve Cole, Vice President of Research and Development at HopeLab, the effectiveness and power of the previous Re-Mission game, particularly its powerful impact on biology and behavior, "by energizing positive motivation circuits in the human brain and giving players a sense of power and control over cancer," inspired them to invent the new series.  "That gave us a whole new recipe for engineering the games in Re-Mission 2 - by harnessing the power of positive motivation circuits in the human brain," he added in a news release.

The effectiveness of the game has been tested and confirmed by more than 120 youngsters affected with cancer across the country.

"A lot of times we don't really want to take our meds, we wonder, 'What is this doing? Where is it going? I'm tired of it. It's just going to make me throw up,'" Jose Guevera (18), a cancer patient at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, who was involved in the development of the game, said. "But when you see on the screen and visualize what's happening inside your body, and what the chemotherapy's doing - you're not looking at a PowerPoint, you're playing a game and you're being chemo and you're killing your bad cells. I think Re-Mission 2 can really help a lot of us."

The new game is available to play free at re-mission2.org.