#TRAINIING YOUR BRAIN APP SERIES#

However, all three groups-including the video game group and the control-improved in much the same way. Joseph Kable, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the study, says that with a group this narrow, itвЂ™s possible that the participants were already functioning at such a high level that they couldnвЂ™t get much benefit out of the brain training. First, it was done in a very specific group: young, healthy people without any pre-existing conditions that might affect their memory. ThatвЂ™s what this study tried to accomplish, he says, but it still left a lot of questions unanswered. But the fact that you can kick MarioвЂ™s butt doesnвЂ™t mean you are going to do better in school or kick your smoking habit. The more you play Mario Kart, the better you are going to be at it.

In fact, the researchers also gave a third group-who didnвЂ™t receive any training at all-the same cognitive tests, and those participants improved about as much as the game players. Both of them did indeed improve by the end of the study, but their improvements were, on average, exactly the same.

#TRAINIING YOUR BRAIN APP SERIES#

Before and after the 10-week period, the researchers gave them a series of cognitive tests to see how well each group would do. The other, the control group, played video games for 10 weeks. One group received 10 weeks of training with Lumosity. In this specific study, the researchers split up a group of 128 young adults into two sets. Scientists still need to do more research to figure out which circuits are actually associated with different behaviors, and it will take even more research to figure out whether certain exercises can help. It could be that one app on the market does help improve one certain type of brain behavior, but we just havenвЂ™t pinned those results down yet. The thing about Lumosity (and other brain training games and apps), says Joaquin Anguera, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of San Francisco School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, is that there are a number of different modules and games to choose from-and all of them work different neural networks in the brain. But hereвЂ™s the problem: ThereвЂ™s still a lot we donвЂ™t know about neuroscience and brain circuitry.

Trainiing your brain app