The annual Year of Wellness event invited a speaker to talk about video games and wellness in a lecture titled “Living, Loving, and Dying in Games and Virtual Reality” on April 14.

Marientina Gotsis is a research assistant professor and director at the Interactive Media and Games Division at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. She teaches and designs games to aid mental, physical and developmental health. Among her most popular games is “The Brain Architecture Game,” in which players use pipe cleaners and straws to create a model of a child’s brain throughout the first eight years of life.

“[They’re] a very rapid growth period for your brain,” said Gotsis. “And it’s not like all hope is lost, if things go bad during those first eight years and that’s something that you learn as you play the game, but it is harder and much more costly to fix things later in life.”

Many mental health professionals use this game to study the early stages of child development, Gotsis said.

Gotsis introduced several video and virtual-reality games, which have been used to invoke important emotions or aid players with depression or anxiety.

“Exposure therapy is something that has been shown to be very effective for a lot of pathological issues and so slow, controlled exposure to the thing that troubles you in a safe environment can help you with that over time,” Gotsis said.

“MindLight” is a video game created specifically to help children cope with anxiety. The child’s brainwaves are monitored as the child plays as a character armed only with a flashlight in a haunted house. In this game, the more anxious the child feels, the dimmer the flashlight becomes. When the light is too dim to see properly, monsters crawl out of the darkness and eat the character. Through this game, players must learn to control their anxiety and keep their flashlight bright as they navigate the house.

“MindLight has some particular skills that you master that are specific to how you feel, which might feel very overt but it’s not really overt in the game,” Gotsis said. “You’re in a haunted house and everything is dark and scary, but if you really focus and bright up your light and learn how to control your anxiety, you can actually lighten up any room.”

Gotsis also described the future of virtual reality, which she works with often, as an effective pain management tool, but so far only for short-term use such as dental procedures or small surgeries.

“Virtual reality is very effective for pain management if the content is desirable by the participant, so they have to enjoy what’s going on to be properly distracted,” she said.

Gotsis finished her lecture with a round of Q. and A., in which she discussed how video games help people both get in touch with themselves and others. Though her games all have noble, extremely important purposes, she reminded her audience that games have a dual purpose, and entertainment is definitely a must for her games.

“All games should be fun,” she said. “If it’s not pleasurable, then it’s not very useful.”