Nintendo-Brain

Brain Fitness Programs, “Brain Gyms”…Explained

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SharpBrains Vision
Thanks to Mind­Hacks for the link to a good Wash­ing­ton Post arti­cle, “Pump­ing Neurons”.

A cou­ple of quotes:

Recent research shows that the brain remains plas­tic, or basi­cal­ly train­able, through­out life. In a study pub­lished in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion in 2002, sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­ages of the 2,802 par­tic­i­pants age 65 and old­er who trained for five weeks for about 2 1/2 hours per week improved their mem­o­ry, rea­son­ing and infor­ma­tion-pro­cess­ing speed.

When we learn, we cre­ate phys­i­cal changes inside our heads. By prac­tic­ing a skill, we repeat­ed­ly stim­u­late the same area of the brain, which strength­ens exist­ing neur­al con­nec­tions and cre­ates new ones. Over time, we can become more cog­ni­tive­ly effi­cient, using few­er neu­rons to do the same job. And the more often we fire up cer­tain men­tal cir­cuits, the eas­i­er it is to get them going again.

[Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams, “Brain Gyms”…Explained

Nintendo Brain Games: new are coming

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New Nin­ten­do brain games will be launched in Europe short­ly, with titles such as The Pro­fes­sor’s Brain Train­er: Log­ic, the Pro­fes­sor’s Brain Train­er: Mem­o­ry, and Ubisoft­’s Mind Quiz, all try­ing to build on the suc­cess of Brain Age.

Inter­est­ing that the arti­cle calls them “intel­li­gence-test­ing games”. We have seen no pub­lished or in-the-works sci­en­tif­ic data sup­port­ing that those games are in fact any good for our Brain Fit­ness, either as Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams or Brain Fit­ness Assess­ments, but fun they are. As the Brain Fit­ness mar­ket matures, we will need to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams with pub­lished data and clear, mea­sur­able, results, and Games whose main val­ue lies in entertainment.

You can read our pre­vi­ous Brain Coach Answers post on why cross­words and sudoku (or Nin­ten­do BrainAge) aren’t suf­fi­cient brain exer­cise.