Help may be on the way for aching thumbs and sore wrists.

A California company has introduced a gaming headset that reads brain waves, letting players move characters by thinking how and where they ought to go.

The device, called Mindset, was developed by NeuroSky Inc. and promoted this week at the annual Tokyo Game Show. It works with a game called “Willpower,” in which the player’s thumbs and hands take a rest.

Instead, mental focus and relaxation do all the work.

“We are exploring the use of brain waves in the game industry because games are fun and so close to people,” NeuroSky director Kikuo Ito told Agence France-Presse news service.

Sound like hokum? Well, keep and open mind. For those of you who dozed off the day they taught brain surgery in school, understand that the brain waves Mindset detects consist of very low level electrical impulses conducted through neurons — the cells that make up the brain. You may already have heard of EEG, or electroencephalography, the measurement of electrical activity in the brain using electrodes placed at various spots on the scalp.

The Mindset is like a small EEG recorder, concentrating the electrical impulses in your head to direct action on a computer screen.

Ito says NeuroSky plans to introduce children’s games using the technology sometime next year, and will release details on those at a later date.