Here is ques­tion nine of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions. To down­load the com­plete ver­sion, please click here.

Ques­tion:
How do I know if computer-based brain fit­ness pro­grams work?

Key Points:

• Research the prod­uct and the names involved with the prod­uct to see what has been published.
• Look for arti­cles in high cal­iber, peer-reviewed journals.
• Ask for referrals.
• Assess­ments done before you begin and then after your train­ing allow you to track your performance.
• Observe your­self. How do you feel after doing the train­ing? Do you feel sharper?

Answer: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is ques­tion 8 of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions. To down­load the com­plete ver­sion, please click here.

Ques­tion:
Why are com­puter pro­grams bet­ter than paper-based ones or sim­ply attend­ing a class in person?

Key Points:

• Paper-based and in-person classes are good and bet­ter than not doing any­thing men­tally stimulating.
• Like other recre­ational activ­i­ties, classes are hard to con­trol for using var­i­ous men­tal mus­cles and pro­vid­ing increas­ing chal­lenge and nov­elty over time.

Answer: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is ques­tion seven of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions. To down­load the com­plete ver­sion, please click here.

Ques­tion:
I already do cross­words and sudoku. Do I need any­thing else?

Key Points:

• Recre­ational activ­i­ties like cross­word puz­zles, sudoku, bridge, chess, poker, etc. are all good for you and bet­ter than doing nothing.
• BUT, recre­ational activ­i­ties are lim­ited in their range of men­tal cross-training as well as dif­fi­cult to con­trol for both chal­lenge and novelty.

Answer: Read the rest of this entry »

Here is ques­tion six of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions. To down­load the com­plete ver­sion, please click here.

Ques­tion:
How do I start a brain fit­ness program?

Key Points:

• Any activ­ity that requires you to use your brain in new, chal­leng­ing ways helps your brain.
• Recre­ational activ­i­ties like bridge, chess, puz­zles, sudoku, var­i­ous classes, read­ing, and sports are all bet­ter than pas­sively watch­ing television.
• Add a com­put­er­ized brain fit­ness pro­gram to get a com­plete men­tal work­out on a reg­u­lar basis.

Answer: Read the rest of this entry »

How many col­ors do you see in this image?

Read the rest of this entry »

We are very excited to announce our newly released Brain Fit­ness for Sharp Brains: Your New New Year Res­o­lu­tion. We wrote it in order to pro­vide an intro­duc­tion to the con­cept, sci­ence, and prac­tice of brain fit­ness in plain Eng­lish, by answer­ing the Top 25 ques­tions we have received over the last four months. Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, Alvaro Fer­nan­dez and myself (Car­o­line) have been work­ing hard on this.

You can click here to get your copy of the com­plete guide. Oth­er­wise, keep check­ing back this blog, as we will pub­lish a new ques­tion and its answer every Mon­day and Thurs­day before 9AM Pacific Stan­dard Time. If we missed your press­ing ques­tion, let us know!

Here is a sneak pre­view of the ques­tions we will be answering …

Read the rest of this entry »

Today 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). NeuWell and Sharp­Brains are explor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties together to bring world-class pro­grams to Japan, and we thought that Sharp­Brains’ blog read­ers may be inter­ested in learn­ing about trends in Japan.

———————-

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

———————-

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 the rest of this entry »

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 the rest of this entry »

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

Puz­zle:

Marie, Claude, and Jean are in a com­pe­ti­tion. Here are their results:

1. The youngest per­son received the least points.
2. Claude got half of the points of the eldest.
3. Jean received as many points as both oth­ers combined.

Ques­tion:
Who is the eldest ?

The Brain Exer­cise:
This puz­zle uses plan­ning and rea­son­ing skills. You read the state­ments and then must develop a plan to solve the prob­lem using your rea­son­ing skills. These skills are found pre­dom­i­nantly in your pre­frontal cor­tex. This area of your brain is respon­si­ble for exec­u­tive func­tions such as plan­ning, struc­tur­ing, and eval­u­at­ing vol­un­tary, goal-directed behav­ior, i.e., activ­i­ties requir­ing the con­stant com­par­i­son of planned acts with the effects achieved.

If you’ve already got the puz­zle fig­ured out, click on the link below to find the answer.

Solu­tion: Read the rest of this entry »