Summary: neuroplasticity-based opportunities and challenges for consumers and professionals

The main mes­sage behind the dis­cov­ery of brain plas­tic­i­ty is that the way we live our life can affect how well our brain age. This is great news. How­ev­er there is no just one gen­er­al solu­tion to brain main­te­nance. Sci­ence sug­gests so far to take a mul­ti-pronged approach cen­tered around bal­anced nutri­tion, stress man­age­ment, and both phys­i­cal and men­tal exercise.

Brain train­ing, defined as the struc­tured use of cog­ni­tive exer­cis­es or tech­niques aimed at improv­ing spe­cif­ic brain func­tions, can be deliv­ered in a num­ber of ways: med­i­ta­tion, cog­ni­tive ther­a­py, cog­ni­tive train­ing. The field is still emerg­ing and many more con­trolled and ran­dom­ized stud­ies are need­ed to (a) assess indi­vid­u­al­s’ cog­ni­tive pro­files eas­i­ly, (b) val­i­date the effects of dif­fer­ent brain train­ing pro­grams, © com­pare dif­fer­ent types of brain train­ings, (d) assess the appro­pri­ate­ness of cer­tain types of brain train­ings for cer­tain spe­cif­ic populations.

One cru­cial aspect of brain train­ing that needs much improve­ment is the base­line cog­ni­tive screen­ing. Tools that allow the user to assess his or her brain func­tions before the train­ing starts are nec­es­sary for sound brain training.  They would allow the con­sumer or patient to tar­get the spe­cif­ic brain func­tions that do need training.

Does brain train­ing work? It depends how “work” is defined. If it is defined as quan­tifi­able short-term improve­ments after a num­ber of weeks of sys­tem­at­ic brain train­ing to improve spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive skills, then yes. A num­ber of the brain fit­ness soft­ware pro­grams on the mar­ket today do seem to work. If, on the oth­er hand, “working” means mea­sur­able long-term ben­e­fits, such as bet­ter over­all brain health as we age, or low­er inci­dence of demen­tia symp­toms, then the answer is that cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence sug­gests they may work. But it is still too ear­ly to tell definitively.

Brain train­ing is becom­ing more and more pop­u­lar and may play an increas­ing role in our every­day life in future years. It is easy to get lost in the increas­ing num­ber of prod­ucts avail­able. This is why stay­ing informed is cru­cial! Con­sumers need to learn how to eval­u­ate their cog­ni­tive needs and how to find the right prod­uct to match their need. Our hope is to be able to help you along the way.

Keep learn­ing by read­ing more arti­cles in the Resources sec­tion, and also please con­sid­er join­ing our free month­ly Brain Fit­ness eNewsletter

This new online resource is based on the con­tent from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (May 2009, $19.95), by Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg.