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 Posit Sci­ence for speech pro­cess­ing and Mind­Fit as includ­ing “All the machines-a total workout”.

Patti Said of the New Eng­land Cog­ni­tive Cen­ter says that “This one (Mind­Fit) was based the most solidly in cog­ni­tive sci­ence and what we think stim­u­lates the brain.”

The first fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence we see between a) Brain Fit­ness Pro­grams such as Mind­Fit and Posit Sci­ence on one side, and b) other “stim­u­lat­ing games”, on the other, is the pres­ence of cred­i­ble assess­ments and clear, struc­tured set of activ­i­ties based on that assess­ment. Given that Mind­Fit costs $149, vs. Posit’s $395, and that it cov­ers much more ground, we typ­i­cally rec­om­mend Mind­Fit as a first step.

Spe­cial Offer: For a lim­ited time, you can receive a com­pli­men­tary copy of our Brain Fit­ness 101 e-Guide: Answers to your Top 25 Ques­tions, writ­ten by Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, by sub­scrib­ing to our monthly newslet­ter. You can sub­scribe Here.

Related blog posts

- Brain Fit­ness: Novem­ber Monthly Digest: a col­lec­tion of arti­cles and links includ­ing news, resources, brain teasers, and more.

- Neu­ro­plas­tic­ity 101 and Brain Fit­ness Glos­sary: an overview of the emerg­ing sci­ence and some key con­cepts to under­stand it.

- Brain Train­ing Games and “Games”: a 10-Question Check­list on how to eval­u­ate pro­grams that make brain-related claims.

- Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science and Psy­chol­ogy Inter­view Series: in-depth inter­views with 11 sci­en­tists and experts in cog­ni­tive train­ing and brain fitness.

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