Brain training works, but just for the practiced task, say Oregon researchers
Many people's New Year's Resolutions involve hitting the gym, and a growing number of people have begun playing online games to give their brains a workout, too. Despite their growing popularity, very little research has been done on the efficacy of these brain training games. A new study in the Journal of Neuroscience says that these games do appear to work, but only for the very specific task targeted by the game. The skills, researchers at the University of Oregon concluded, didn't appear to transfer to new tasks. The scientists studied 60 individuals, half of whom were trained every day for three weeks with a task to improve self-control. Measurements of brain activity with fMRI found an increase in activity in the frontal gyrus (pictured, yellow circle) in those individuals who had participated in the brain training while completing similar brain tasks. Further imaging showed that these changes were specific to the self-control tasks, and that the effects of brain games appeared to be small. The researchers hope to design better games and activities that might have larger, more enduring effects.
Source and further reading:
http://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news-release/2014/1/brain-training-works-just-practiced-task-say-oregon-researchers
Journal article: Training-Induced Changes in Inhibitory Control Network Activity. Journal of Neuroscience, 2013. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3564-13.2014
Story via Neuroscience Research Techniques
Image: yellow - highlighted area shows portion of brain impacted by training
Credit: Elliot Berkman
This is new? I remember reading something similar a year or more ago with the same conclusions. Perhaps that study was focused in a bit of a different direction. It looked at brain games helping the aging population maintain brain function. The rise of Soduko and the like, but in the end the conclusion was the same: they were able to maintain or even get better doing the task of the activity, but it didnt transfer to anything else.
ReplyDeleteYou refer to the Max Planck study? That one showed increases of grey matter in the right hippocampus, right prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum. In other words in the brain regions involved in functions such as spatial navigation, memory formation, strategic planning etc. Now this study just explains how brain training improves performance on a given task. Is not like 11 clock news but adds a bit of contour to a painting which we already saw or at least heard about.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I dont recall much detail. What I read on it was not as indepth as describing what parts of the brain they were monitoring.
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