Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40611299›Full record

ArticleChild and adolescent psychiatry and mental health2025

Investigating the effects of a novel gamified cognitive training on adolescent mental health.

Karina Grunewald, Savannah Minihan, Jack L Andrews, Annabel Songco, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Anson Kai Chun Chau, Jaimee Fischer, Elaine Fox, Alba Bruggeman Nelissen, William Raffe and 3 more

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Article in Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

13 authors.

Karina GrunewaldSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Savannah MinihanSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Jack L AndrewsDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Annabel SongcoBlack Dog Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Sarah-Jayne BlakemoreDepartment of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Anson Kai Chun ChauSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Jaimee FischerSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Elaine FoxSchool of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
Alba Bruggeman NelissenFaculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
William RaffeCenter for Human Centred Technology Design, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Matthew RichardsDepartment of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Aliza Werner-SeidlerSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Susanne SchweizerSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. s.schweizer@unsw.edu.au.

Funding

NHMRC Investigator Grant GNT1197074Wellcome Trust 107496Wellcome Trust 209127
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundAdolescence is a time of increased emotional volatility, with emotion regulation still developing. Training the cognitive substrate of successful emotion regulation has been shown to benefit adolescents' mental health. However, cognitive training interventions often have low adherence rates in this age group. The current study therefore trialled a novel gamified cognitive training program in adolescents.

methodsA longitudinal study was conducted throughout 2023 where 144 culturally diverse adolescents (13-16 years, 48% female) completed 12 days of either a novel gamified affective control training program, the Social Brain Train (SBT), or a standard non-gamified affective control training program (AffeCT). Participants also completed mental health and mechanisms of change questionnaires at baseline, post-training, and 1-month follow-up, as well as behavioural affective control and interpretation bias measures at baseline and post-training.

resultsThe total minutes spent training did not differ significantly across the two training groups. Participants assigned to SBT training, however, did engage in more training sessions than participants assigned to AffeCT training. Additionally, all participants showed improvements in affective control performance and a reduction in interpretation bias and rumination from baseline to post-training. The observed reduction in rumination persisted at 1-month follow-up.

conclusionsAs engagement is often the most difficult thing to achieve in cognitive training with adolescents, observing greater repeated engagement with the gamified cognitive training is promising, given training on these apps is entirely self-motivated. Observing benefits to affective and cognitive control performance as well as reduced interpretation bias and rumination tendencies after very limited training is promising, as these factors have all been previously linked to improved mental health symptoms among adolescents. The present findings therefore suggest there may be merit in using gamification techniques to improve the design of future training programs, and employing these to improve affective, cognitive, and emotion regulation abilities in adolescents.

Indexed as

AdolescentCognitive trainingDepressionEmotion regulationGamificationMental health

Identifiers

PMID40611299
PMCPMC12225106

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.