Cognitive training exercises often involve such things as pattern detection, using a touch screen program to increase thinking speed, and memorizing lists. Such activities can often be found online or by using mobile apps. There are some things you should remember before trying these websites, games, or apps, however:.

Some of these brain training companies were actually fined by the Federal Trade Commission FTC for making misleading claims about the benefits of their games. A study compared the effects of the brain-training tool Lumosity to regular video games.

The results found that both groups showed improvements in cognitive abilities—but so did other participants who didn't play any games at all. The reality is that cognitive training may or may not work, but engaging in mentally stimulating activities is always a good thing.

Finding ways to challenge your brain may help you feel sharper now and protect your brain as you age. If you want to try more general mental training designed to improve overall brain fitness, you might want to focus on doing mental exercises on your own.

Some brain-boosting activities that might be helpful include:. In addition to such cognitive training, there are other things that you can do to help take care of your brain. Activities that can improve your brain health include getting regular exercise , being socially active , and meditating.

Cognitive training may have a number of potential benefits, but it is also important to understand the limitations. It may sharpen your skills and help you retain more information, but you shouldn't expect miraculous improvements. Such skills may or may not translate to the real world. If nothing else, these brain games can be a fun, challenging way to put your cognitive skills to the test.

Rather than focusing on training for a specific mental ability such as working memory, you might be better off focusing on things that promote long-term brain health and fitness. These include staying physically active, managing your stress , getting plenty of sleep, and maintaining social connections.

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Federal Trade Commission FTC. Kable JW, Caulfield MK, Falcone M, et al. Daily email participation reminders were sent to all participants during the study period.

The Lumosity cognitive training program was used as the treatment condition in this study. Treatment participants in this study received the same training experience that Lumosity subscribers received over the same period of time. Daily training sessions included five cognitive training tasks.

On any given day, the five tasks for that particular session were chosen by an algorithm that attempted to optimize a balance of training activities such that tasks were presented in clusters across days without repeating individual tasks on a given day.

One five-task session typically took approximately 15 minutes to complete. Outside of this session, participants could opt to do additional training with any of the 49 available tasks in an a la carte fashion. The cognitive training tasks each target a particular core cognitive ability and are grouped into five categories by target domain: speed of processing, attention, memory, flexibility, and problem solving.

Many of these tasks are described in detail elsewhere in the literature [ 25 — 27 , 29 , 30 , 35 — 37 ], and a description of all tasks is included as Supporting Information S1 Appendix.

Participants randomized into the active control group received a daily session timed at a minimum of 15 minutes. They were instructed to complete as many crossword puzzles as possible in the allotted time.

If a participant completed a puzzle within the minute time period, the crossword application would provide a new puzzle. At the end of the minute period, participants were able to continue to work on the current puzzle for as long as they chose but were not given additional puzzles that day.

The crossword puzzles were produced by professional crossword constructors and presented in a web-based crosswords platform.

Constructors were asked to create crosswords that were of medium difficulty, approximately equivalent to a Thursday New York Times crossword puzzle note: the New York Times puzzles increase in difficulty throughout the week, culminating with the most difficult puzzle on Saturday.

Participants filled out the puzzles by typing the answers in the appropriate boxes. Feedback about correct and incorrect responses was given immediately following submission of a completed crossword.

The puzzles were placed in a website frame that replicated the look and feel of the cognitive training website in order match as closely as possible the experience across the two conditions.

See the Supporting Information S1 File for additional details on how engagement time was estimated. Secondary analyses based on total time are included in S1 File.

Outcomes were assessed using a battery of seven neuropsychological tests, as well as a participant-reported outcomes survey. The primary outcome measure used in this study was change in aggregate cognitive performance, as measured by the Grand Index described further below of the neuropsychological assessment battery, from before to after the week study period.

Secondary outcome measures included change in performance on each of the subtests in the neuropsychological battery and changes in responses to the survey.

The assessments and survey were administered online in a pre-test one day prior to beginning the treatment or control condition.

Participants were directed to take the post-test 70 days later, one day following the end of the treatment or control. Seven neuropsychological assessments were used in this study.

These assessments required participants to recall a sequence of randomized spatial locations in either forward or reverse order. This task was designed to measure divided visual attention and required participants to recall the locations of briefly presented target letters while ignoring distractors.

See the Supporting Information S2 Appendix for more detailed information about the design of these assessments. Importantly, none of the tasks used in the outcome assessment battery were presented during training.

Rather, outcome assessments were implemented as measures of transfer to underlying cognitive abilities. Our assessment scaling procedure follows standard rank-based normalization approaches used in well-established IQ tests [ 42 , 43 ]. Normalization tables were created based on the pre-test data from participants who completed both the pre- and post-tests, including control participants who completed some amount of cognitive training during the study period.

Norms were generated in 5-year age bins and tables were created within each age bin for each assessment. These normalization tables were created by taking the empirically observed percentile rank for each raw score and finding the value corresponding to that percentile from a normal distribution with a mean of and standard deviation of 15 i.

This sum was then transformed using the same percentile rank normalization procedure described above. Participants also completed a survey including nine questions related to specific cognitive failures [ 44 ] and successes as well as emotional status.

Participants took the survey immediately after completing the neuropsychological test battery, once before beginning the study period pre-test and once upon completion of the study post-test. Because this question did not apply equally to the treatment and control groups, and was not included in the original protocol, it was removed from the analysis.

For completeness, responses to this question are included along with the rest of the study data in the attached S1 Dataset. The survey items are presented in the Results section.

Our primary hypothesis was that the treatment program would lead to greater improvements in aggregate cognitive performance compared to the active control, as measured by the neuropsychological assessment battery. If this hypothesis were correct, we would expect to see larger improvements from pre-test to post-test on the Grand Index of the assessment battery for the treatment group relative to the control group.

Such differences in change scores were observed. The mean increase on the Grand Index score post-pre in the treatment group was 5. Error bars represent confidence intervals bootstrapped over , iterations.

Mean change scores and error bars are based on unadjusted summary statistics. P value is based on results from the ANCOVA analysis described in Table 2.

The difference in composite Grand Index change scores between the two groups treatment vs. control was evaluated with an ANCOVA model measuring the effect of group, controlling for the pre-test score. Pre-test score was included as a covariate to control for regression to the mean effects as well as any effects of baseline performance.

These results indicate that the cognitive training treatment condition was more effective than the crosswords control for improving cognitive performance on the assessment battery on an aggregate basis.

To ensure that the exclusion of control participants who did some cognitive training with the treatment program see Participants section in Methods could not explain these results, we performed an additional set of ANCOVA analyses S1 File.

The pattern of results and conclusions remained consistent across all comparisons see S1 File , indicating that these exclusions could not explain the main result that cognitive training led to larger gains in cognitive performance compared to crosswords.

In the primary analysis conducted here, no outliers were removed. All completed assessments were included in the analysis. In order to ensure that outliers did not play an important role in the findings, we completed a secondary outlier analysis see S1 File.

In this analysis, any raw scores that were outside the range of three standard deviations above or below the mean were removed prior to further statistical analysis. The conclusions remained the same across all subtests included in the battery.

The Grand Index change score analysis was recalculated for participants with no outliers. Based on this analysis, outlier effects could not account for the results of this study.

Based on the significant main effect on our primary outcome measure, we performed secondary analyses consisting of additional ANCOVA models for each assessment. The models revealed that the cognitive training treatment group improved significantly more than the crossword puzzles control group on five of the seven assessments.

There was no statistically significant difference between the groups for the Two-Target Search task. Fig 3 provides an illustration of the unadjusted change scores for each assessment for both groups. ANCOVA model p values and effect sizes along with unadjusted pre-test means and change scores for each assessment are shown in Table 2.

P values are based on results from the ANCOVA analyses listed in Table 2. If the cognitive training treatment was more effective than playing crossword puzzles for improving cognitive abilities, we may observe a larger effect of active days of study engagement for the treatment condition compared to the control condition.

In order to test for a group difference in the effect of active days, we constructed a general linear model predicting Grand Index change score from pre-test score, treatment group, active days, and the group-by-active-days interaction.

Lines represent estimates from the general linear model including effects of group, active day, and the group-by-active-days interaction. The estimated total time participants engaged with their respective conditions provides an additional measure of compliance.

These results indicate that participants in both conditions on average complied with the instructions to engage for at least 15 minutes per day, 5 days per week for 10 weeks See S1 File for matched sample analyses demonstrating that the observed group differences in overall cognitive performance improvement are not explained by differences in the distributions of total engagement time.

Of the 4, participants included in the analyses above, 4, In order to calculate change scores on the survey, participant responses were first numerically coded on a scale from 0 to 4, with the scale always ranging from 0 as the most negative response to 4 as the most positive response.

Responses to questions 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 were reverse coded to maintain consistency of response coding across all questions i. An average of the scores was taken for both pre- and post-tests as an overall measure of self-reported real-world cognitive performance and emotional status.

The differences between pre- and post-test overall scores and scores on each question were analyzed. The hypothesis that participants in the treatment group would show greater self-reported improvements in cognition and emotional status relative to control participants was tested via an ANCOVA model measuring the effect of group treatment vs.

control on the change in average survey score, controlling for average pre-test score. These results indicate that, overall, the cognitive training treatment was more effective than the crosswords control for improving self-reported real-world cognition and emotional status. For all nine questions, both groups tended to report improvements following study participation, compared to the pre-test.

The changes were significant for both groups on all questions except for question 4 memory for a new name. Results for each question are presented in Table 3. The three largest group differences were on questions 1, 3 and 6, all of which were related to concentration.

The findings of this study are consistent with the extant literature on cognitive training that shows that progressively challenging, targeted cognitive training can be an effective tool for improving core cognitive abilities including speed of processing [ 13 ], working memory [ 46 ], and fluid reasoning [ 10 ].

The results presented here extend previous findings by demonstrating that a cognitive training program targeting a variety of cognitive capacities with different exercises can be more effective than crossword puzzles at improving a broad range of cognitive abilities. In addition, improvement on the overall measure of cognitive function used as the primary outcome measure in this study—the Grand Index for the assessment battery—was more than twice as large in the cognitive training group as it was in the crossword puzzles control group.

Thus, for improving a variety of core cognitive abilities, the treatment used in this trial was more effective than crossword puzzles. Another approach to appreciating the magnitude of these results is to contextualize them in the distribution of scores on the outcome measures.

We observe that participants in the training group improve by 2. Given that the scores are scaled on a mean ± 15 sd scale, we can evaluate how far an average participant would move within the population distribution for their age based on moving a given number of points.

In this case, 2. This is a potentially meaningful move within the distribution. A significant group-by-active-days interaction was observed in this study, such that an additional active day engaging with the cognitive training intervention was related to larger gains on the cognitive battery composite score compared to an additional active day engaging with crossword puzzles Fig 4.

This suggests that additional training could lead to larger gains. While it is unlikely that the linear relation holds indefinitely i. In addition to the enhanced performance observed in the cognitive training group on the neuropsychological measures of cognitive function, participants in this group also self-reported experiencing benefits that were significantly greater than those reported by participants in the active control.

These participant-reported improvements were particularly strong on questions related to the ability to concentrate. These results suggest that participants in the treatment group experienced benefits from the training in their everyday lives.

Crossword puzzles were chosen as the active control because they are commonly believed to be a cognitively stimulating activity that is good for brain health [ 31 , 32 ].

This is important because it has been suggested that belief in the efficacy of a training intervention could affect effort and performance on testing outcomes [ 47 ]. While not as large as the gains seen in the treatment group, participants in the crosswords control group also showed improvements in cognitive performance.

Without a no-contact control group in this study, it is not possible to conclusively determine whether these improvements in the active control condition were due to practice effects, placebo effects, real treatment effects, or some combination of these.

Further study will be needed to better understand the benefits of crossword puzzles for maintenance and enhancement of cognition. It is worth noting that participants in the crosswords group improved slightly more than the cognitive training group on a measure of grammatical reasoning.

There are several reasons why the treatment program might have outperformed crossword puzzles in enhancing cognitive function. First, the cognitive training program is specifically targeted to core cognitive functions. This distinguishes the treatment from crossword puzzles, which are not designed with the goal of cognitive enhancement.

Another central feature of the cognitive training program studied here is that it is progressively challenging —that is, many of the tasks explicitly increase in difficulty as the individual improves, while others encourage the individual to perform at threshold by rewarding increasingly faster and more accurate performance see S1 Appendix.

This follows a long-established tenet in the psychological literature, that learning conditions are optimized when the task is challenging, but not prohibitively difficult [ 48 , 49 ]. Task variety and novelty are also potentially important.

In the case of crossword puzzles, participants are primarily involved in vocabulary retrieval, challenging a more limited set of neural pathways. In the cognitive training program studied here, participants are challenged to engage with a variety of cognitive tasks that challenge different neural processing systems and do so in different ways.

This variety limits the opportunity to solve the tasks with a single task-specific strategy, thus encouraging the learning of new strategies and the development of new neural connections. We noted that there have been several studies that have reported not finding benefits from cognitive training.

The only other similarly powered study that did not find positive results is a study that recruited 11, participants through a BBC television show and collected data online [ 17 ]. The authors concluded that brain training had no measureable benefits.

Several key aspects of that study differ from the one presented here. First, neither of the two treatment conditions they used had been studied empirically prior to that experiment. As we demonstrate in this study, not all cognitively stimulating activities are equally effective for enhancing cognition, and it is possible that other programs not examined in their study are more effective.

Also, the average amount of training exposure in the BBC study was less than half of that in this study. This is an important distinction as results of this study indicate that amount of training is related to the magnitude of gains in cognitive performance Fig 4. Our results represent statistically significant improvements in cognitive processes through training.

This study included a sufficiently large number of participants and enough training to reliably detect these effects. As has been noted previously [ 50 ], most cognitive training studies that have shown null results have not been powered in such a way that either a positive or a null outcome would be informative, and often include quite short training periods.

In the broader context of factors influencing cognitive processes i. Further research will be needed to understand how the current effects extrapolate over much longer training periods. In this study, There was little difference in dropout rates between the two groups, and supplemental analyses S1 File that equated the engagement characteristics of completers from both groups demonstrated that these differences in dropout between the two groups could not explain the results.

This study utilized an entirely online design. The online methodology is ecologically valid, since most users in the real world experience the program at home or in some other personal environment outside a laboratory or clinic. In traditional laboratory-based training studies, participants experience considerable contact with study personnel.

Contact with study personnel may lead to lower rates of loss to follow up. However, this personal interaction introduces a variable that could affect the results and is not reflective of how most normal, healthy adults use these programs.

A possible limitation of the current study is that it does not isolate specific mechanisms. For example, adaptive difficulty may play an important role in driving the transfer of training [ 51 ]. Many of the tasks in the cognitive training program were explicitly adaptive i.

The two conditions differed on other dimensions as well. The cognitive training program incorporated a variety of tasks that targeted specific cognitive functions, while the crosswords condition did not. Front Psychol.

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Centre Leenaards de la Mémoire, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland. Laboratory of Neuroimaging of Aging LANVIE , University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Daniele Altomare, Giovanni B. Memory Clinic, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland.

Unit of Cognitive Neurology and Aphasia, Centro de Investigaciones Médico-Sanitarias, University of Malaga, Malaga, Spain. Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Málaga — IBIMA, Malaga, Spain.

Center for Research and Innovation in clinical Pharmaceutical Sciences, University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.

School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland, University of Geneva, University of Lausanne, Geneva, Switzerland. Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center, Pasqual Maragall Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.

Department of Molecular and Translational Medicine, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy. Alzheimer Center Amsterdam, Department of Neurology, Amsterdam Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.

Andrea Brioschi Guevara and Melanie Bieler conceptualized this Paper, drafted the manuscript for intellectual content, and approved the manuscript.

Gael Chételat, Jean-François Démonet, Daniele Altomare, Giovanni B Frisoni and Federica Ribaldi conceptualized this Paper, revised the manuscript for intellectual content, and approved the manuscript.

Marcelo Berthier, Chantal Csajka, Alessandra Dodich, Carlo Miniussi and Sophie Dautricourt drafted specific parts of the manuscript, revised the manuscript for intellectual content, and approved the manuscript. Philip Scheltens and José Luis Molinuevo revised the manuscript for intellectual content, and approved the manuscript.

Correspondence to Andrea Brioschi Guevara. JLM is currently a full-time employee of Lundbeck and has previously served as a consultant or an advisory boards for the following for-profit companies, or has given lectures in symposia sponsored by the following for-profit companies: Roche Diagnostics, Genentech, Novartis, Lundbeck, Oryzon, Biogen, Lilly, Janssen, Green Valley, MSD, Eisai, Alector, BioCross, GE Healthcare, ProMIS Neurosciences.

PS has received consultancy fees paid to the institution from AC Immune, Alkermes, Alnylam, Anavex, Biogen, Brainstorm Cell, Cortexyme, Denali, EIP, ImmunoBrain Checkpoint, GemVax, Genentech, Green Valley, Novartis, Novo Noridisk, PeopleBio, Renew LLC, Roche.

He serves on the board of the Brain Research Center. JFD has received consultancy fees from Biogen and OM Pharma; unrestricted grants from OM Pharma; and has collaboration agreements with Siemens and MindMaze.

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Alz Res Therapy 13 , Download citation. Received : 11 January Accepted : 06 May Published : 11 October Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative.

Skip to main content. Search all BMC articles Search. Download PDF. Review Open access Published: 11 October Protocols for cognitive enhancement. A user manual for Brain Health Services—part 5 of 6 Andrea Brioschi Guevara 1 na1 , Melanie Bieler 1 na1 , Daniele Altomare ORCID: orcid.

This article has been updated. Abstract Cognitive complaints in the absence of objective cognitive impairment, observed in patients with subjective cognitive decline SCD , are common in old age. Background Forgetfulness is one of the most common worries among the elderly.

Cognitive, mental, or physical training CMPT Here we considered as a CMPT intervention any training that had a potential impact on cognition, including cognitive intervention, physical activity and mental training e.

Cognitive interventions and physical training Cognitive intervention is a powerful mean to stimulate brain plasticity, as it showed not only an impact on behavior but also on the brain [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Mindfulness meditation Meditation refers to a set of emotional and attentional regulatory training exercises [ 18 , 19 ], encompassing different practices, such as focused attention, open monitoring, and loving-kindness meditations [ 19 ].

Non-invasive brain stimulation Non-invasive brain stimulation NIBS includes different methods aimed at inducing transient changes in brain activity and consequent variations in behavioral responses. Full size image.

Methods Search strategy and selection criteria A systematic approach has been used to review CMPT interventions see Figure S1 and S2 in Supplementary Material.

Table 1 Experimental design of the selected studies Full size table. Table 2 CMPT interventions Full size table. Table 4 Efficacy of CMPT experimental interventions Full size table.

Table 5 Statistics for outcomes encompassing 5 CMPT studies Full size table. Discussion Considering that the pathology in neurodegenerative disorders starts decades before the symptoms appear, the main objective of this work was to rigorously review techniques to make an actionable clinical recommendation to enhance cognition in SCD individuals.

Cognitive, mental, and physical training The systematic review on CMPT targeting SCD individuals showed positive and clinically relevant findings.

Non-invasive brain stimulation The overall current evidence suggests that an intervention combining multiple sessions of NIBS and cognitive training may lead to clinically meaningful improvements in cognition and functional independence in the aging population.

Drugs This review on the effect of drugs on SCD cognition and healthy individuals included the main pharmacological cognitive enhancement CED or smart drugs, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, Memantine, antidepressant and herbal extracts Panax ginseng , Gingko biloba , and Bacopa monnieri.

Conclusions Recent studies on cognitive enhancement techniques in SCD population are showing encouraging results. Availability of data and materials Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study. Change history 08 November The paper was amended to add a DOI in references part of the Brain Health Services series.

Abbreviations GRADE: Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation CMPT: Cognitive, mental, and physical training PICO: Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes RCT: Randomized clinical trial SCD: Subjective cognitive decline NIBS: Non-invasive brain stimulation CED: Cognitive enhancement drugs RCT: Randomized controlled trial LLD: Late-life depression tDCS: Transcranial direct current stimulation rTMS: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.

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Legg, PhD, PsyD — By Jon Johnson — Updated on April 4, Meditation Visualizing more Playing games Card games Crosswords Puzzles Sudoku Chess Checkers Video games Socializing Learning new skills Increasing vocabulary Learning a language Listening to music Musical instruments Engaging hobbies Regular exercise Dancing Sports Tai chi Sleeping Summary Brain exercises may help boost and maintain brain function.

Visualizing more. Playing games. Playing memory card games. Practicing crossword puzzles. Completing jigsaw puzzles. Playing sudoku. Playing chess.

Playing checkers. Playing video games. Learning new skills. Increasing personal vocabulary. Learning a new language. Listening to music. Learning a musical instrument. Taking up engaging hobbies. Exercising regularly.

Engaging in sports. Practicing tai chi. How we reviewed this article: Sources. Medical News Today has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations.

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A reading of the CET Manual and review of the exercises should leave you convinced about the opportunity for real client change, and confident that you can indeed apply this cutting edge, empirically tested cognitive rehabilitation approach.

CET is a performance based, comprehensive, developmental approach to the rehabilitation of social cognitive and neurocognitive deficits. CET is designed as a recovery phase intervention for persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who are symptomatically stable, but who nonetheless remain socially and vocationally disabled.

Patients need to be outpatients stabilized on medication, have an IQ of at least 80, and not be abusing drugs and alcohol. Participants work at recovery through structured group and computer exercises. CET is the culmination of more than 30 years of clinical experience and research in schizophrenia treatment development by the psychosocial treatment pioneer and University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry Professor Emeritus, Gerard E.

Hogarty, M. Overall, CET attempts to increase mental stamina, active information processing, and the spontaneous negotiation of unrehearsed social challenges. It does so with a focus on enhancing perspective taking, social context appraisal, and other components of social cognition.

CET has been shown to have remarkable and enduring effects in a two year randomized study of persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder treated with either CET or Enriched Supportive Therapy EST.

Once CET participants completed the social cognitive groups, highly significant effects were observed for CET on five composite measures Neurocognition, Processing Speed, Cognitive Style, Social Cognition, and Social Adjustment at two years.

See Figure 1 Hogarty et al. To guide future cognitive training trials, we offer several explanations why Gist reasoning training may augment higher-order executive functions. Second, gist reasoning requires an active process of meaning-abstraction where the incoming details are integrated within one's repository of world knowledge by a conscious, controlled manipulation of input into précised ideas Johnson-Laird, ; Van Dijk et al.

This integration of incoming data with prior knowledge necessitates activation of top-down processing with enhanced depth of encoding compared to simple representation of literal input.

Third, gist reasoning is a practical skill that the majority of people from adolescence to old age can implement and practice throughout their daily normal mental activities Lloyd and Reyna, ; Gamino et al.

Examples of gist reasoning are meaning-creations illustrated by generating interpretations, themes, take-home messages, synopses, or generalized statements, to mention a few forms. Fourth, accruing evidence suggests that such a top-down approach to processing engages broad-based brain networks Gazzaley et al.

We propose that when the neural activity of major brain networks is increased through complex and meaningful cognitive activities involving gist reasoning, the outcomes may be manifested at multiple levels of cognitive performance and neural health.

Immense potential exists to augment cognitive performance and enhance neural systems through top-down cognitive activity, such as gist reasoning. Future research opportunities should combine multiple approaches simultaneously from the growing armamentaria shown to enhance cognitive performance and brain functions to examine additive benefits.

The current reported benefits from Gist reasoning training motivate future trials where the gist training protocol is combined with methods such as short-term meditation Tang et al. Also critical is examining subjects' motivational level as a factor. Expanded efforts to identify combinatorial protocols that strengthen cognitive performance and recoup losses will be of major public health significance, with the ultimate goal to more fully harness the brain's capacity to be strengthened in health, disease, and injury.

This work was supported by grant from the National Institute of Health RC1-AG, RNS, RAG, NICHD RHD , Department of Defense W81XWH and by grants from the T.

Boone Pickens Foundation, the RGK foundation, the Lyda Hill Foundation, Dallas Foundation, and Dee Wyly Distinguished University Endowment.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The authors thank Jacquelyn Gamino, Lori Cook, Asha Vas, Mike Motes, Molly Keebler, Audette Rackley, Jennifer Zientz, Erin Venza, Hsueh-Sheng Chiang, Justin Eroh, Ali Perez, and the rest of the cognitive training team for their contribution to the research discussed in this perspective.

Anand, R. Gist reasoning training in cognitively normal seniors. Psychiatry 26, — doi: Pubmed Abstract Pubmed Full Text CrossRef Full Text. Anguera, J. Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults. Nature , 97— Bartlett, F. Remembering: An Experimental and Social Study.

Cambridge: Cambridge University. Belleville, S. Training-related brain plasticity in subjects at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Brain , — Bennett, E. Chemical and Anatomical Plasticity of the Brain. Science — Binder, D. Brain HealthWorkshop.

Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest, Toronto: ON; University of California, Berkeley: CA. Boyke, J. Training-induced brain structure changes in the elderly.

Bransford, J. Sentence memory: a constructive versus interpretive approach. CrossRef Full Text. The abstraction of linguistic ideas. Bressler, S. Large-scale brain networks in cognition: emerging methods and principles.

Trends Cogn. Carlson, M. Evidence for neurocognitive plasticity in at-risk older adults: the experience corps program. A Biol. Chapman, S. Neural mechanisms of brain plasticity with complex cognitive training in healthy seniors.

Reyna, S. Chapman, M. Dougherty, and J. Confrey, — Discourse gist: a window into the brain's complex cognitive capacity.

Discourse Stud. Chen, A. Training of goal-directed attention regulation enhances control over neural processing for individuals with brain injury. Functional reintegration of prefrontal neural networks for enhancing recovery after brain injury. Head Trauma Rehabil.

Clare, L. Cognitive training and cognitive rehabilitation for people with early-stage Alzheimer's disease: a review. Dahlin, E. Transfer of learning after updating training mediated by the striatum. Science , — Frederksen, C. Constructing multiple semantic representations in comprehending and producing discourse.

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Cognitive and memory training in adults at risk of dementia: a systematic review. BMC Geriatr. Gazzaley, A. Top-down enhancement and suppression of the magnitude and speed of neural activity. Jaeggi, S. Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory.

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Brunyé Ester Navarro Holly A. Original Research 04 January Original Research Open access 30 December The Efficacy of a Brief Psychoeducational Intervention to Improve Engagement in Computerized Cognitive Training Exercises in Major Depressive Disorder Melissa Milanovic Lindsay E.

Simourd Christopher R. Original Research 27 December Acute Bouts of Aerobic Exercise Do Not Modulate Task-Evoked Midfrontal Theta Oscillations in School-Age Children Shu-Shih Hsieh Shih-Chun Kao Charles H.

Original Research Open access 27 December View all articles. This journal has 78 open access articles. Editorial Procedure All submissions are peer-reviewed. Peer Review Process for Special Issues Journal of Cognitive Enhancement welcomes special issues.

Introducing New Editor-in-Chief: C. Shawn Green The Journal of Cognitive Enhancement is happy to announce its new Editor-in-Chief, C.

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Copyright information Rights and permissions Springer policies © Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Number puzzles, such as sudoku, can be a fun way to challenge the brain. They may also improve cognitive function in some people. A study of adults aged between 50 and 93 years found that those who practiced number puzzles more frequently tended to have better cognitive function.

A meta-analysis notes that chess and other cognitive leisure activities may lead to improvements in:. A review notes that some types of video games — such as action, puzzle, and strategy games — may lead to improvements in the following:.

Enjoying company of friends may be a mentally engaging leisure activity and may help preserve cognitive function. A study found that people with more frequent social contact were less likely to experience cognitive decline and dementia. A study of older adults found that learning a new and cognitively demanding skill, such as quilting or photography, enhanced memory function.

A simple way to increase vocabulary is to read a book or watch a TV program and note down any words that are unfamiliar. A person can then use a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word and think up ways to use the word in a sentence.

A review notes that bilingualism increases and strengthens connectivity between different areas of the brain. A study published in Brain Sciences found that listening to music a person enjoys engages and connects different parts of the brain. The researchers propose that this may lead to improvements in cognitive function and overall well-being.

According to a study , playing an instrument may benefit cognitive development in a young brain and help protect against cognitive impairment in an aging brain. Such hobbies may include:. Regular physical exercise is beneficial for both the brain and the body.

Authors of a review note that exercise improves the following aspects of brain health:. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC , exercise has beneficial effects on the following aspects of cognitive health:.

Dance is a form of exercise that may also engage areas of the brain involved in rhythm and balance. Certain sports are both physically and mentally demanding.

Some require a range of cognitive skills, such as:. A review notes that elite athletes who participate in high demand sports tend to have improved attention and faster information processing speeds.

Tai chi is a form of physical exercise that involves gentle body movements, rhythmic breathing, and meditation. A study compared brain function and connectivity among tai chi practitioners and those who did not practice it. The researchers found that the tai chi practitioners had enhanced connectivity between different regions of their brain.

They proposed that this may improve cognition and decrease the rate of memory loss. While not necessarily an active exercise, sleep is crucial for both the brain and the body.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke , most adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night, although many people get less sleep than they need. A review notes that sleep has been proven to:.

As such, making sure to get enough sleep each night is an important step toward maintaining a healthy brain. Brain exercises can be as simple as actively engaging the brain in everyday tasks. Others are targeted workouts for the brain, specifically designed to enhance memory, cognition, or creativity.

Exercising the brain may help improve brain function and boost connectivity between the different areas. This may help protect the brain from age-related degeneration. People are likely to differ in terms of the brain exercises they find most enjoyable.

It may be a good idea to try a range of brain-training activities at first and to stick with those that provide the most enjoyment or reward.

The diet can have a significant impact on the brain's function. For example, in , the FDA approved a brain training game designed to help treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD. The treatment is delivered via a video game that has been shown in several clinical trials to improve attention in children with ADHD.

These effects also translated into meaningful improvement in daily functioning after a month of treatment. Such results show the potential that brain training may have.

Researchers have been studying the impact of brain training for decades. However, there continues to be surprisingly little consensus on the effectiveness of cognitive training. While there is research that supports the idea that specific brain training exercises can improve specific cognitive skills, there are other studies that have arrived at different conclusions.

Despite this lack of agreement in the research, an entire industry of apps, games, and other tools has emerged based on the idea that playing these brain games can improve your mental abilities.

And while there is some support for brain training, researchers have also questioned whether the skills gained during these training exercises transfer to real-world activities. There is some research that supports the use of brain training and its transferability to daily life and functioning.

In one large-scale study, mental training was found to improve the cognitive function of older adults that led to lasting real-world improvements such as recalling when to take their medications. The potential for such lasting benefits could help older adults maintain their mental abilities and independence as they age.

It's not just aging brains that stand to benefit from cognitive training. Research also suggests that brain training games can help improve executive functions such as working memory and processing speed in younger adults as well. The question, then, is why have some studies supported the positive effects of cognitive training while others have not found such effects?

There may be a few factors at work. If you are interested in using brain training, there are a few different things you can do. Cognitive training exercises often involve such things as pattern detection, using a touch screen program to increase thinking speed, and memorizing lists.

Such activities can often be found online or by using mobile apps. There are some things you should remember before trying these websites, games, or apps, however:.

Some of these brain training companies were actually fined by the Federal Trade Commission FTC for making misleading claims about the benefits of their games. A study compared the effects of the brain-training tool Lumosity to regular video games. The results found that both groups showed improvements in cognitive abilities—but so did other participants who didn't play any games at all.

The reality is that cognitive training may or may not work, but engaging in mentally stimulating activities is always a good thing. Finding ways to challenge your brain may help you feel sharper now and protect your brain as you age. If you want to try more general mental training designed to improve overall brain fitness, you might want to focus on doing mental exercises on your own.

Some brain-boosting activities that might be helpful include:. In addition to such cognitive training, there are other things that you can do to help take care of your brain. Activities that can improve your brain health include getting regular exercise , being socially active , and meditating.

Cognitive training may have a number of potential benefits, but it is also important to understand the limitations. It may sharpen your skills and help you retain more information, but you shouldn't expect miraculous improvements. Such skills may or may not translate to the real world.

If nothing else, these brain games can be a fun, challenging way to put your cognitive skills to the test. Rather than focusing on training for a specific mental ability such as working memory, you might be better off focusing on things that promote long-term brain health and fitness.

These include staying physically active, managing your stress , getting plenty of sleep, and maintaining social connections. Yates LA, Ziser S, Spector A, Orrell M. Cognitive leisure activities and future risk of cognitive impairment and dementia: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

International Psychogeriatrics. Katz B, Shah P, Meyer DE. How to play 20 questions with nature and lose: Reflections on years of brain-training research.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Qiu C, Johansson G, Zhu F, Kivipelto M, Winblad B. Prevention of cognitive decline in old age-varying effects of interventions in different populations. Ann Transl Med. National Institute on Aging. Cognitive health in older adults.