To reach your cognitive potential across the whole lifespan, augment healthy lifestyle with brain training

Can You Get Smarter? (The New York Times):

“A few years back, a joint study by BBC and Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty neu­ro­sci­en­tists put brain train­ing to the test…There was, how­ev­er a glim­mer of hope for sub­jects age 60 and above…Unlike the younger par­tic­i­pants, old­er sub­jects showed a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in ver­bal rea­son­ing, one of the com­po­nents of the bench­mark test, after just six weeks of brain train­ing, so the old­er sub­jects con­tin­ued in a fol­low-up study for a full 12 months.

Results of this fol­low-up study, soon to be pub­lished in a peer-reviewed jour­nal, gen­er­al­ly show that con­tin­ued brain train­ing helps old­er sub­jects main­tain the improve­ment in ver­bal rea­son­ing seen in the ear­li­er study. This is good news because it sug­gests that brain exer­cise might delay some of the effects of aging on the brain.

OF course, skep­tics might argue that old­er peo­ple are already on a down­ward cog­ni­tive tra­jec­to­ry, so their improve­ment with brain games is not actu­al enhance­ment so much as a slow­ing in the decline of men­tal acu­men. Call it what you will, but it still sounds fine to me.

…there is much that you can do to reach your cog­ni­tive poten­tial and to keep it. For­get the smart drugs and sup­ple­ments; put on your shorts and go exer­cise. If you’re 60 and up, con­sid­er brain train­ing. And do it all with your friends.”

Learn more:

• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging
• BBC “Brain Train­ing” Exper­i­ment: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly