BrainAware: Interactive digital psychoeducation for adolescents and young adults with substance use disorders

Project Summary Abstract Treatment professionals struggle to get adolescents and young adults to engage and persist with treatment for substance abuse disordersIt is particularly difficult to maintain interest or enthusiasm with two core elements of evidence based substance abuse treatmentpsychoeducation and peer supportWe propose to counter young peopleandapos s resistance to treatment by creating an interactive educational app that is engagingprovides sound instructionand facilitates peer interactionAndamio Games is partnering with the Perelman School of Medicineandapos s Center for Studies of Addiction at the University of Pennsylvaniaa nationally recognized laboratory for research and development of new treatments for substance use disordersWe will designdevelopand test a learning game called BrainAware based on adapted content from the National Institute on Drug AbuseNIDAand supplemented with original curriculum on medication assisted treatmentMATto teach the neurobiology of addiction to adolescents and young adults in behavioral treatmentWe will concurrently develop a dashboard companion app that will provide counselors with unique capabilities to effectively lead group psychoeducation sessionsWith funding from a previous NIMH grantAndamio has already tackled the problem of making neuroscience more engaging and easier to learn by developing the mobile educational app iNeuron and testing it with high school studentsOur educational efficacy study of overstudents inclassrooms demonstrated that using iNeuron resulted in larger concept knowledge gains relative to standard instructionFor this Fast Track project we will build BrainAware on the foundation of iNeuron s existing neural simulator and instructional designand use our in house app development toolkitA key feature developed for iNeuron that will be adapted for BrainAware is collaborative playwhere peers must together across devices to solve problemsBrainAware s counselor dashboard will be adapted from the one developed for iNeuronallowing counselors to monitor and respond to individual and group activity in real timeWe will design BrainAware in consultation with experts in the neurobiology of addictiontreatment counselorsand a youth young adult community advisory boardthen test BrainAware in an educational efficacy study with adolescents and young adults undergoing substance use disorder treatmentWe will test the hypothesis that using BrainAware will result in larger gains in concept knowledge and increased engagement relative to learning with standard psychoeducation instructional methodsUpon successful completion of the studythe BrainAware app and dashboard will be marketed to overtreatment facilities through our commercial partner Hazelden PublishingOur vision is to ultimately create a comprehensiveinteractive digital curriculum for psychoeducation that can be utilized by adolescents and young adults with substance use disorders to positively impact broader treatment outcomes Project Narrative A particular challenge to the field of substance use disorder treatment is the engagement of young adultsagedand adolescentsagedwho resist treatment based on multiple factors specific to their age groupAndamio Gamesin partnership with the Center for Studies of Addiction at the University of Pennsylvaniaproposes to develop and implement an interactivecollaborative digital learning app and counselor dashboard app for use in adolescent and young adult substance abuse treatment to provide education on the neurobiology of addictionOur longer term goal is to utilize our unique educational technology platform to improve the delivery and effectiveness of a broad range of psychoeducational curriculum for this challenging cohort