Mobile phone game can detect people most at risk of Alzheimer's

Scientists have identified people who are more at risk of developing Alzheimer's, based on how they play the mobile phone game 'Sea Hero Quest'.

A research team from the University of East Anglia (UEA) studied gaming data taken from 27,108 UK-based people aged between 50 and 75, who played the mobile app. The game has been played by over 4.3m people worldwide.

Lead researcher Professor Michael Hornberger, from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “We can detect people who are at genetic risk of Alzheimer’s based on how they play the game."

He said: “Our current findings show that we can reliably detect such subtle navigation changes” in healthy people who are not showing “any problem symptoms or complaints.

“Our findings will inform future diagnostic recommendations and disease treatments to address this devastating disease.”

The mobile phone game was created by Deutsche Telekom in partnership with Alzheimer’s Research UK, University College London (UCL), the University of East Anglia and game developers Glitchers. It has been designed to help researchers better understand dementia by seeing how the brain works in relation to spatial navigation.

The research shows data collected from people who downloaded and played Sea Hero Quest can be used as a benchmark to help identify those at a genetically higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s in smaller groups of people.

'Every two minutes spent playing the game is equal to five hours of lab-based research’

Professor Hornberger said: “Current diagnosis of dementia is strongly based on memory symptoms, which we know now are occurring when the disease is quite advanced.

“Instead, emerging evidence shows that subtle spatial navigation and awareness deficits can precede memory symptoms by many years.”

As players make their way through mazes of islands and icebergs, the team are able to translate every half a second of gameplay into scientific data. Every two minutes spent playing the game is equal to five hours of lab-based research.

Therefore, three million players globally equate to more than 1,700 years’ worth of lab-based research.

Research has found Alzheimer's disease is a risk gene called apolipoprotein E (APOE). One in every four persons who have one copy of the APOE4 gene are around three times more likely to be affected by Alzheimer’s and develop the disease at a younger age.

Prof Hornberger said: “We found that people with a high genetic risk, the APOE4 carriers, performed worse on spatial navigation tasks. They took less efficient routes to checkpoint goals.

“This is really important because these are people with no memory problems."

Dementia will affect 135 million people worldwide by 2050.

Hilary Evans, chief executive at Alzheimer’s Research UK said: “We often hear heartbreaking stories about people with dementia who get lost and can’t find their way home and we know spatial navigation difficulties like these are some of the earliest warning signs for the condition.

“Using big data to help improve the early and accurate detection of the diseases that cause dementia can help revolutionise how we research and treat the condition. Sea Hero Quest is an amazing example of how pioneering research can help scientists get one step closer to a life-changing breakthrough.”

The study was published in the journal PNAS.

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