S.M.A.R.T. BrainGames is a spin-off turning years of NASA  biomedical and scientific research into an effective and fun experience for children and adults.

NASA scientists measured pilot's attention and engagement to task in flight simulators. One of the scientists, Dr. Alan Pope recognized that a flight simulator was very similar to a video game. Dr. Pope then came upon the exciting concept of using real video games controlled by the player's brain activity.

"The biofeedback video game concept (patented by NASA in 1994) evolved from a physiologically-adaptive simulator system that was developed in NASA flight deck research.  With this system, brainwaves controlled the level of automation in a simulator flight deck.  This "closed-loop" testing setup was used to determine what level of automation kept pilots engaged best in the flight task.  It was soon realized that, given enough practice, pilots could probably turn the testing system into a training system; that is, they would learn to control their brainwaves to set the level of automation where they wanted.  This becomes essentially a brainwave biofeedback training situation.  It differs from conventional brainwave biofeedback in that the feedback and reward are not explicit on a display, but implicit in the subject's control of the task's difficulty with his brainwaves.  If the flight simulator is replaced with a video game, as it was in the spin-off technology, the system becomes an entertaining way to deliver brainwave biofeedback training.  NASA scientists are encouraged to look for these kinds of spin-offs from their core aerospace research." (Pope, 2000)

S.M.A.R.T. BrainGames and its parent company CyberLearning Technology, LLC are not affiliated with any other company claiming to use NASA technology and video games to improve attention. CyberLearning Technology has an exclusive license with NASA to provide this exciting technology to the public. Any company making such claims may be in violation of NASA's license.

NASA conducted a research study on children with ADHD. View the research video to find out how kids playing video games can drastically improve their awareness.

Excessive sympathetic autonomic nervous system (ANS) arousal can interfere with task performance of pilots during flight emergencies. Regular biofeedback training is hard to apply to this problem, because it is very situation-specific and biofeedback signals may distract the pilot from attention to flight tasks. NASA LaRC and Eastern Virginia Medical School developed a Stress Counter-Response Training method where biofeedback is integrated directly into ordinary flight tasks.  Training aims at limiting deviations from optimal arousal levels through feedback during repeated stressful events in simulated flight.

With increased sophistication in technology, human performance has increasingly become a limiting factor in aviation safety.  Both inattention and stress overload play a substantial role in impairing pilot performance and producing flight hazards.  Biofeedback training can foreseeably help reduce the occurrence of these "hazardous states of awareness" by teaching pilots to maintain the necessary physiological conditions for good cognitive and psychomotor performance under the circumstances which are most likely to produce inattention or dysfunctional stress.