With about a zillion web applications (apps) serving as flashlights and tip calculators, it’s easy to overlook the potential for smartphones, like the iPhone, to function as useful tools for your health. Medical researchers from the University of Western Ontario, however, have developed an app that could do more than play a game on your phone—it could motivate you to change your lifestyle to improve your health.

University of Western Ontario professor and Lawson Health Research Institute scientist Femida Gwadry-Sridhar at the iThink Research Labs has led the development of an iPhone app that will show certain patients what their arteries look like. Targeted at those individuals with a high risk of stroke, Gwadry-Sridhar’s app would provide an ultrasound rendering of plague deposits in the carotid artery. The app, which will be tested in randomized control trial, would allow patients to access a password-protected site online where their artery . . . → Read More: Better for You Than Angry Birds: Researchers Create iPhone App to Show You the State of Your Arteries