Whether you choose to try to reduce the age of your brain to 20 (purported to be the ideal brain age in Nintendo's How Old is Your Brain?), or make your brain bigger by using another Nintendo game, Big Brain Academy, or improve your "Practical Intelligence Quotient" and post your score with the help of a Sony games title, there's no shortage of new ways to train your brain.
1) What is brain training?
Recent research suggests that everything from absentmindedness to arithmetic skills can be improved by playing certain intelligence and memory-stimulating activities. Scientists and neuro-experts believe puzzles that rely on problem-solving, memory and logical deduction can be highly beneficial for the brain by making people approach tasks in a more flexible way. A widely held belief used to be that the brain only lost cells as it got older. Now it's known that people can acquire new brain cells throughout their lives, provided their brains are stimulated.
According to the Society for Neuroscience, remembering lists of facts or keeping day-to-day information in your mind is different from memorising things in the long term. To do this, you have to exercise your brain. One way is to play a dedicated computer game such as Nintendo's How Old is Your Brain? or Big Brain Academy. Typical tasks in How Old is Your Brain? could be counting the syllables in a sentence to completing 20 simple sums as quickly as possible.
2) How does it work?
Dr Ryuta Kawashima, the neuroscientist who is behind the Brain Trainer device (which is like a large calculator but with simple graphics and sound) and the Nintendo Dual Screen (DS) title Brain Training: How Old is your Brain? explains how it all works. "Simple mathematical calculations and saying answers out loud activates the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex which governs the most essential living functions for humans, such as cognition, emotion and memory, and enables the maintenance and improvement of brain functions."
Nintendo's DS handheld games console has one screen that's touch sensitive and is "drawn" or written on using a stylus, and another that displays information and instructions. Users hold the device like an open book. Like Dr Ryuta Kawashima, Dr Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscientist and author of The Learning Brain, thinks that this really will help to make your brain more active.
"When you're stimulating your brain, it is more active and can even grow brain cell connections. If you teach people to play the piano, the part of the brain that controls finger movements increases and is more active. That's the idea behind brain training."
3) Why now?
Dr Blakemore says there are two reasons for the interest in brain training. "People are living longer, so they are noticing that their memories are going sooner, or they're aware of it over a longer period. They care about that because there's more awareness of about brain health. There's also scientific evidence showing that training your brain improves it."
4) What do the experts say?
Specialists agree that exercising your brain is a good thing. Dr Kawashima says: "If you don't use your brain, it will age quickly. You'll have a brain with less power than the ideal brain age of 20. But you can train your brain just like your body."
Psychologist Professor Walter Furneaux agrees that this kind of mental stimulation is valuable. "It's true to say that almost any mental rehearsal can be useful to improve memory [and mental agility]. While I don't know of any specific results about these games, it would be interesting to do some serious work on them."
Dr Marshall D Voris conducted a study using the brain-training exercises available at www.mybraintrainer.com, a website that offers daily challenges to keep the minds of its online users alert. He claims that "the MyBrainTrainer.com exercises increased IQ, reduces anxiety, and improves cognitive efficiency and speed".
5) Who should do it?
It's said that doing puzzles can slow the onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease and improve mental capacity in the young. According to a study into the effects of Alzheimer's by the Case Western Reserve University in the United States, middle-aged people who kept active, mentally or physically, were less likely to develop the disease in later life. Activities such as gardening, playing a musical instrument or exercising were found to be the most successful in helping to prevent the disease.
6) How do I train my brain?
Dr Blakemore cautions there's only so much any exercise can do. "If you play the Nintendo game or solve crossword puzzles you become better at those tests but you're not suddenly going to become a brilliant cook or something. It's very specific."
So you may be able to boost your IQ by a point, but the great novel may take a little more time.
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