Brain Training: MindFit workout

Just released in Sci­en­tif­ic American:
Mem­o­ry work­outs beat oth­er com­put­er games in study

Some quotes

• “Train­ing the brain with a com­put­er work­out pro­gram may be bet­ter than clas­sic com­put­er games at staving off age-relat­ed men­tal decline, sci­en­tists report­ed on Friday.”
• “Researchers in Israel com­pared how one brain-train­ing pro­gram, Mind­Fit, fared ver­sus a work­out with a sam­pling of clas­sic com­put­er games, such as the puz­zle game Tetris.”
• “The study, fund­ed by a grant from game mak­er Cog­niFit Ltd., involved 121 vol­un­teers over 50 who used the Mind­Fit train­ing pro­gram or a sam­pling of com­put­er games for three months.”
• “Both groups ben­e­fit­ed, but the group using the Mind­Fit pro­gram showed a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in spa­tial short-term mem­o­ry, spa­tial learn­ing and focused attention.”
• “Improve­ment was espe­cial­ly pro­nounced in users who start­ed out with some form of cog­ni­tive decline.
• The find­ings, which were pre­sent­ed on Fri­day at an Alzheimer’s con­fer­ence in Salzburg, Aus­tria, were sim­i­lar to a small­er study done at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia last year.”

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Relat­ed blog posts

- Brain Fit­ness: Novem­ber Month­ly Digest: a col­lec­tion of arti­cles and links includ­ing news, resources, brain teasers, and more.

- Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty 101 and Brain Fit­ness Glos­sary: an overview of the emerg­ing sci­ence and some key con­cepts to under­stand it.

- Brain Train­ing Games and “Games”: a 10-Ques­tion Check­list on how to eval­u­ate pro­grams that make brain-relat­ed claims.

- Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Psy­chol­o­gy Inter­view Series: in-depth inter­views with 11 sci­en­tists and experts in cog­ni­tive train­ing and brain fitness.

- Books on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and mem­o­ry train­ing: reviews of Train Your Brain, Change Your Mind, by Sharon Beg­ley, and The Brain That Changes Itself, by Nor­man Doidge. Both books are fas­ci­nat­ing and pow­er­ful; each would have mer­it­ed appear­ing in the 2007 New York Times List of 100 Notable Books.