Brain fitness programs: why are so many appearing now?

Here is ques­tion ten of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions. To down­load the com­plete ver­sion, please click here.

Ques­tion:
Why are so many brain fit­ness pro­grams appear­ing now?

Key Points:

• 1) Research on cog­ni­tive exer­cise and its clin­i­cal appli­ca­tions and tools have been around for a long time in hos­pi­tals and the military.
• 2) Gam­ing has become so pop­u­lar and wide­spread, that it is an easy and nat­ur­al medi­um to uti­lize for brain fitness.
• 3) Sci­ence is being pub­lished that shows how brain exer­cise can lead to enhanced neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty (growth of new neu­rons and con­nec­tions between them) through­out life.

Answer:

Although some knowl­edge about the brain has been around since the days of Ancient Greece and Rome, it real­ly got a boost in the 19th cen­tu­ry with some major dis­cov­er­ies in brain local­iza­tion. Since then, the field has been grow­ing with the amount of knowl­edge increas­ing steadi­ly. Yet, due to tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­ic con­straints, many of the tools to under­stand cog­ni­tion stayed with­in uni­ver­si­ty, med­ical, and mil­i­tary research labs where they were inac­ces­si­ble to most people.

With recent sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments, it has become much eas­i­er and cheap­er to learn more. Research on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis is increas­ing all the time. With these tools came the sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence that cog­ni­tive train­ing is neuroprotective.

As our pop­u­la­tion ages and faces some of the chal­lenges of get­ting old­er, more peo­ple are inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing their qual­i­ty of life. Now that we know there is some­thing we can do about it, the pro­grams are start­ing to pop up on the mar­ket. More and more pro­grams will appear, and Sharp­Brains will always be on the fore­front look­ing for proven sci­ence-based pro­grams that are also fun. Come back and look for rec­om­men­da­tions. If we don’t talk about a pro­gram you’ve seen, send us a note.

Fur­ther Reading

• Tar­ra­ga L, Boa­da M, Modi­nos G, et al. A ran­domised pilot study to assess the effi­ca­cy of an inter­ac­tive, mul­ti­me­dia tool of cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion in Alzheimer’s dis­ease. J Neu­rol Neu­ro­surg Psy­chi­a­try. 2006;77:1116–21.
• Wein­er, S. “Pump­ing Neu­rons”. Wash­ing­ton Post. 2006;October 17:HE01.
• Willis SL, Tennst­edt SL, Mar­siske M, et al. Long-term effects of cog­ni­tive train­ing on every­day func­tion­al out­comes in old­er adults. JAMA. 2006;296:2805–14.