Can Your X-Box Detect Heart Disease?

Heartworks, the first fully functioning virtual heart to help train cardiologists and doctors

A computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England has devised a way to use an Xbox 360 to detect heart defects and help prevent heart attacks.

The new tool has the potential to revolutionize the medical industry because it is both faster and cheaper than the computer systems that are currently used by scientists to perform complex heart research.

The system, detailed in a study in the August edition of the Journal of Computational Biology and Chemistry, is based on a video-game demo created by Simon Scarle two years ago when he was a software engineer at Microsoft's Rare studio, the division of the U.S.-based company that designs games for the Xbox 360.

Scarle modified a chip in the console so that instead of producing graphics for the game, it now delivers data tracking how electrical signals in the heart move around damaged cardiac cells.

This creates a model of the heart that allows doctors to identify heart defects or conditions such as arrhythmia, a disturbance in the normal rhythm of the heart that causes it to pump less effectively.