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For a $14.95 monthly membership, the
website Lumosity promises to “train” your brain
with games designed to stave off mental decline.
Users view a quick succession of bird images and
numbers to test attention span, for instance, or
match increasingly complex tile patterns to
challenge memory.
While Lumosity is perhaps the best known
of the brain-game websites, with 50 million
subscribers in 180 countries, the cognitive training
business is booming. Happy Neuron of Mountain
View, Calif., promises “brain fitness for life.”
Cogmed, owned by the British education company Pearson, says its training program will give
students “improved attention and capacity for
learning.” The Israeli firm NeurMuch of the focus of theonix is developing a
brain stimulation and cognitive training program
that the company calls a “new hope for Alzheimer’s
disease.”
Much of the focus of the brain fitness
business has been on helping children with
attention-deficit problems, and on improving
cognitive function and academic performance in
healthy children and adults. An effective way to
stave off memory loss or prevent Alzheimer’s —
particularly
The problem, Dr. Doraiswa if it were a simple website or video
game — is the “holy grail” of neuroscience, said
Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, director of the
neurocognitive disorders program at Duke Institute
for Brain Sciences.
The problem, Dr. Doraiswamy added, is
that the science of cognitive training has not kept
up with the hype. “Almost all the marketing claims
made by all the companies go beyond the data,”
he said. “We need large national studies before
you can conclude that it’s ready for prime time.”
For centuries, scientists believed that
most brain development occurred in the first few
years of life — that by adulthood the brain was
largely immutable. But over the past two decades,
studies on animals and humans have found that
the brain continues to form new neural connections
throughout life. But questions remain whether an
intervention that challenges the brain — a puzzle,
studying a new language or improving skill on a
video game — can really raise intelligence or stave
off normal memory loss.
A series of studies in recent years has
suggested that certain types of game training can
improve a person’s cognitive performance. In
February 2013, however, an analysis of 23 of the
best studies on brain training, led by the University
of Oslo researcher Monica Melby-Lervag, concluded
that while players do get better, the increase in
skill hasn’t been shown to transfer to other tasks.
In other words, playing Sudoku or an online
matching game makes you better at the game, but
it doesn’t make you better at math or help you
remember names or where you left your car keys.
But other studies have been more
encouraging. Last September, the journal Nature
published a study by researchers at the University
of California, San Francisco, that showed a driving
game did improve short-term memory and longterm focus in older adults. The findings are
significant because the research found that
improvements in performance weren’t limited to
the game, but also appeared to be linked to a
strengthening of older brains over all, helping them
to perform better at other memory and attention
tasks.
In addition, brain monitoring during the
study showed that in older participants, game
training led to bursts in brain waves associated with attention; the patterns were similar to those
seen in much younger brains.
Earlier this year, the National Institutes of
Health invited applications to more rigorously test
brain fitness training to stave off cognitive decline.
Researchers say they hope the effort will help
establish a consistent standard for determining
whether a brain-training intervention works.
But while the science remains unclear,
entrepreneurs have seized on what is likely to be a
sizable marketing opportunity. In May, hundreds of
researchers and businesses will gather in San
Francisco for the NeuroGaming Conference and
Expo to explore the latest research and the newest
technology.
While there is no real risk to participating
in the many unproven brain-training games
available online and through smartphones, experts
say, consumers should know that the scientific jury
is still out on whether they are really boosting
brain health or just paying hundreds of dollars to
get better at a game.
“I’m not convinced there is a huge
difference between buying a $300 subscription to a
gaming company versus you yourself doing
challenging things on your own, like attending a
lecture or learning an instrument,” Dr. Doraiswamy
said. “Each person has to personalize for
themselves what they find fun and challenging and
what they can stick with.”
From: www.nytimes.com, March 10, 2014