This is a phenomenon that has been observed in both physical and mental health, although the latter depends largely on what happens in our chief organ, the brain. Many scientists have tried to show that it is possible to improve brain health and consequently the cognitive abilities that the brain takes care of. It is also true that the findings have been somewhat confusing and the studies had some important limitations such as small samples, short workouts or programs made up of a few exercises.
All these limitations have been overcome by a new research work carried out by various North American research centers, using an online cognitive training program. No less than 4,715 people participated in the study, who underwent online cognitive assessments before and after the training phase. These evaluations included short-term memory tests, verbal and non-verbal reasoning or response inhibition, among others.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of two possible groups. On the one hand, the training group, which practiced with a total of 49 games that trained attention, memory or various reasoning abilities or executive functions. This group of participants trained about 15 minutes a day with the games, 5 days a week for 10 weeks. The other group, active control, performed crosswords to match the fact of performing some type of task during the same period of time.
The results of this experiment, recently published in PLoS ONE (2015), show us several important findings. On the one hand, they found that the online cognitive training group improved significantly more in games. On the other hand, the training group improved in the tests of processing speed, working memory and short-term memory, problem solving and fluent reasoning. Finally, the participants also felt that they had improved those capacities, especially the attention, and they said this in a questionnaire where their opinion was asked.
The authors of this study have shown that training the brain with games can be useful for adults, especially with programs that consist of many games that address different mental functions. And on top of it it can even be fun and motivating. If you are of an age and want to function well, you can always try to get your brain in shape, do not hesitate.
Marisa Fernández is a Senior Neuropsychologist at Unobrain
