Gaming for science, children visiting London’s Science Museum were asked to contribute to a brain research project.

Specialists caring for premature babies are developing a computer game that can measure the impact of premature birth on brain function.

During the brain games at the museum, the performance of hundreds of volunteer children, aged between six and seven has been tracked.

According to neuropsychologist Anita Montagna the tests disguised as computer games require specific cognitive skills:
“One is executive attention, so the ability to hold information and to inhibit automatic responses. That’s the idea and then there’s working memory, holding information in mind and manipulating the information online and it’s really important as it predicts academic achievement and other skills in life and then we have selective attention, the ability to focus the attention and to not pay attention to distractions and you can see that in the games and we’ve got sustained attention