Brain training games do not make you smarter, scientists say but aerobics keeps your brain healthy

Brian training games do not make you smarter, scientists from Florida say. Aerobics could be a better way of keeping your brain healthy and put off cognitive decline.

First, there were puzzles and crosswords. Especially popular among baby-boomers, they are still used today in an effort to put off or slow down cognitive decline. But more recently, with the technological advancements and an ageing population, the brain training industry has grown into a billion-dollar business and thousands of games and apps are available online that promise to enhance your brain activity and boost its performance.

But researchers from the University of Florida were not convinced by the claims of the industry so they set out to test whether the challenges and puzzles can actually boost players’ working memory and consequently improved other mental abilities, such as reasoning, memory and processing speed.

In their study, scientists appealed to 60 adults, aged over 65. Researchers set up one group of people to play a specially designed brain-training video game called “Mind Frontiers,” while another group of players performed crossword games or number puzzles.

All players were given the information they needed to juggle to solve problems.

But after measuring, the scientists found that the theory behind many brain-games, that if you improve overall working memory then you can enhance performance in many areas of someone’s life, is wrong.

“Our findings and previous studies confirm there’s very little evidence these types of games can improve your life in a meaningful way,” said Wally Boot, associate professor of psychology and author of the study.

Scientists say that while you can get better at some tasks set up by the games, there will be little transfer to your everyday activity.

“It’s possible to train people to become very good at tasks that you would normally consider general working memory tasks: memorising 70, 80, even 100 digits,” said Neil Charness, professor of psychology and author of the study. “But these skills tend to be very specific and not show a lot of transfer. The thing that seniors, in particular, should be concerned about is, if I can get very good at crossword puzzles, is that going to help me remember where my keys are? And the answer is probably no.”

Charness has dedicated his life to studying the effects of growing old and he understands the continued concern over preserving this vital function, cognition, especially as the senior population is growing in numbers.

“People have real concerns about loss of cognition and loss of memory as they age, so they do all kinds of things to try to stave off cognitive decline,” Charness said.

Charness and his team published their results in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience and are now trying to convince people that they should not believe the claims of an industry that typically sell apps for about $15 a month or $300 for lifetime memberships, promising to make players smarter.

“More companies are beginning to be fined for these types of inflated claims and that’s a good thing,” Boot said. “These exaggerated claims are not consistent with the conclusions of our latest study.”

Physical exercise keep the brain healthy

And doctor Charness also points out that aerobics could be a far better way to keep one’s brain healthy as a recent study suggested that physical exercise can actually cause beneficial structural changes in the brain and boost its function. He also predicts that “exer-gaming,” which combines exercise with brain games, will increase in popularity in the 21st century.

“I wouldn’t come away from our article totally discouraged,” Charness said. “It’s another piece of the puzzle that we’re all trying to assemble. It’s discouraging in the sense that we can’t find far transfer and that seems to be a fairly consistent finding in research. But if your real goal is to improve cognitive function and brain games are not helping, then maybe you are better off getting aerobic exercise rather than sitting in front of the computer playing these games.”

Brain training games are especially popular in the U.S. where there are an estimated 45 million senior Americans. UN is warning that population ageing is unprecedented, without parallel in human history, and the twenty-first century will witness even more rapid ageing than did the century just past.

In this situation, how to deal with cognitive decline and other problems related to ageing has become an increasingly pressing issue for national authorities and the private sector alike.