Nintendo-Brain

Brain Training and Brain fitness games

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Fun quick arti­cle, titled Review: Lat­est Brain-Teas­ing Video Games, on Brain Train­ing, “Nin­ten­do Brain Age”, “Big Brain Acad­e­my”, “Hot Brain”, “Brain Boost”, “Brain Genius”, “Brain Juice”, “Brain Chal­lenge”, “Mind Quiz”…

Please remem­ber to use our check­lists on How to Select the Right Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram-short check­list or the full length ver­sion-, if you are look­ing for real ben­e­fits beyond entertainment.

MindFit and Posit Science in the Wall Street Journal’s “Putting Brain Exercises to the Test”

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The Wall Street Jour­nal has a great arti­cle today, Putting Brain Exer­cis­es to the Test (requires sub­scrip­tion), that com­pares 6 dif­fer­ent com­put­er-based brain exer­cise pro­grams along ease-of-use, fun, and sci­ence behind. We at Sharp­Brains con­duct­ed a very sim­i­lar exer­cise last year, com­ing to basi­cal­ly the same conclusions.

The arti­cle com­pares Nin­ten­do Brain Age, MyBrain­Builder, MyBrain­Train­er, Hap­pyNeu­ron, (Cog­niFit Sci­ence) Mind­Fit and Posit Sci­ence brain fit­ness 2.0, and ends up rec­om­mend­ing [Read more…] about Mind­Fit and Posit Sci­ence in the Wall Street Journal’s “Putting Brain Exer­cis­es to the Test”

Brain Calisthenics, Brain Fitness Center locations

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“…across the coun­try, brain health pro­grams are spring­ing up, offer­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a cog­ni­tive foun­tain of youth.”

“From “brain gyms” on the Inter­net to “brain-healthy” foods and activ­i­ties at assist­ed liv­ing cen­ters, the pro­grams are aimed at baby boomers anx­ious about enter­ing their gold­en years and at their par­ents try­ing to stave off mem­o­ry loss or dementia.”

Keep read­ing today’s New York Times arti­cle As Minds Age, What’s Next? Brain Cal­is­then­ics.

The arti­cle also refers to Posit Sci­ence, Hap­pyNeu­ron, MyBrain­Train­er, and oth­er com­pa­nies, insur­ers and res­i­dences offer­ing brain fit­ness programs/brain exer­cise software.

And includes a note of cau­tion: “This is going to be one of the hottest top­ics in the next five years — it’s going to be huge,” said Nan­cy Cerid­wyn, co-direc­tor of spe­cial projects for the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging. “The chal­lenge we have is it’s going to be a lot like the anti-aging indus­try: how much sci­ence is there behind this?”

You can learn more by check­ing our longer post yes­ter­day, New Research on How to Main­tain a Sharp Brain, where we com­ment­ed on yes­ter­day’s NYT Edi­to­r­i­al, the results from the JAMA study and an IHRSA newslet­ter to fit­ness and health clubs that we authored.

Brain Training and “Brain-ism” in Japan

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Go HiranoToday we are trav­el­ing to Japan. Go Hira­no is a ser­i­al Japan­ese entre­pre­neur who has been explor­ing neu­ro­science-based oppor­tu­ni­ties in Japan, hav­ing recent­ly cre­at­ed the com­pa­ny NeuWell (neu­ro­science for wellness).

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Key take-aways:

- Peo­ple in Japan devour any prod­uct with brain-relat­ed claims

- But there has been a recent back­lash against chil­dren videogames, so game devel­op­ers have start­ed to focus on old­er audi­ences with (most­ly unproven) brain-health-improv­ing games

- The mar­ket is ripe for pro­grams with proven research and tan­gi­ble benefits

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AF: Hira­no-san, tell us a bit about your­self and how you became inter­est­ed in applied neuroscience. 

GH: after help­ing launch one of the first DSL providers in Japan, I start­ed to won­der what the next big­ger val­ue for soci­ety would be. I have always been fas­ci­nat­ed by brain research, so I start­ed to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to help bring to mar­ket neu­ro­science-based pro­grams to help stu­dents do bet­ter in exams, and adults age in brain-friend­ly ways.

AF: what is the state of Brain Fit­ness and Brain Train­ing in Japan? what are the most pop­u­lar appli­ca­tions so far?

GH: I think peo­ple under­stand the con­cepts of Brain Fit­ness and Brain Train­ing. If one method or product/service sounds a bit sci­en­tif­ic there are peo­ple who would try it for fun and curios­i­ty. How­ev­er, [Read more…] about Brain Train­ing and “Brain-ism” in Japan

Posit Science, Nintendo Brain Training, Dakim…WebMD on Brain Fitness.

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Good Web­MD 4‑page arti­cle on Brain Fit­ness pro­grams for seniors. Check Keep­ing Your Brain Fit for Life:Software com­pa­nies are offer­ing new pro­grams that promise to keep your brain sharp as you get older.

Some quotes:

- “The notion of brain fit­ness has even invad­ed pop­u­lar cul­ture. In April, Nin­ten­do released Brain Age, a Japan­ese-inspired, hand­held video game to help users’ minds stay active. While the game is mar­ket­ed for all ages, the buy­ers — now num­ber­ing more than 655,000 in the U.S. — have main­ly been old­er peo­ple, Nin­ten­do of Amer­i­ca spokes­woman Amber McCol­lom writes in an email.”

- “Play­ers take a non­sci­en­tif­ic test that cal­cu­lates a “brain age” for the pur­pos­es of the game. [Read more…] about Posit Sci­ence, Nin­ten­do Brain Train­ing, Dakim…WebMD on Brain Fitness.

Nintendo Wii, emotions and cognitive fidelity

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Jon­ah Lehrer from the Frontal Cor­tex blog has writ­ten a good arti­cle on the Nin­ten­do Wii, William James and Anto­nio Dama­sio over at seedmagazine.com, How the Nin­ten­do Wii will get you emo­tion­al­ly invest­ed in video games.

A cou­ple of quotes

- While Sony and Microsoft exer­cise your thumbs, Nin­ten­do gives you a full body workout. 

- “This is the irony of the Wii: although it can’t com­pete with the visu­al real­ism of Sony and Microsoft, it ends up feel­ing much more real­is­tic.”

In a dif­fer­ent con­text, but it reminds me of our con­ver­sa­tion with Prof. Gopher about the need for cog­ni­tive fideli­ty in Brain Fit­ness Programs.

Alvaro