Nicole Levermore

University of York

My academic background is within Neuroscience, having achieved BSc Neuroscience and Psychology, MSc Translational Neuroscience and currently completing MPhil Auditory Neuroscience. Outside of my research interests, I enjoy playing video games, hiking, playing the cello and learning various coding languages.  

Video games have enormous potential for research on cognition and mental health and previous research suggests that playing video games can improve visual attention and memory. In my project, I will use video games to perform basic research into a common psychiatric disorder (ADHD), paving the way for improved diagnosis, monitoring and therapy. ADHD is typically diagnosed in childhood and is characterised by failures of attentional state maintenance. This project involves using a cutting-edge neuroimaging technique (OPM-MEG) to investigate how subjects with and without ADHD switch between attentional states (for example, ‘engagement’ and ‘flow’) while playing a cognitively engaging video game.   

The ultimate goal is to use video games to understand how mental health impacts people’s ability to focus on cognitively demanding tasks and, potentially, to develop therapeutic intervention.