Saturday, September 16, 2006

Big Brain Academy - exercise your brain!

Big Brain Academy was announced as one of the initial shipping games for the Nintendo Wii. It'll work a lot like the DS version. Here's a video preview.







UPDATE: There's also a good article on brain training software in the latest BusinessWeek. The evidence that puzzle-solving games really help improve brain function is still pretty slim. Many studies show no effect. But on the plus side of the ledger:
This summer Posit released two studies [of their $395 Brain Fitness program] that Merzenich says prove its worth. One, involving 182 healthy people 60 and over, assigned half the group to Posit's brain exercises for eight weeks. The rest were asked only to watch educational DVDs. The researchers found that 93% of the Brain Fitness group significantly improved their memory function, while the control group did not.

In a second study released this summer, Posit's program was tried on 45 people diagnosed with MCI. PET scans of the brains of 15 participants were taken before and after the study. There was some evidence of memory gains in the Brain Fitness group, and the PET scans revealed a decline in brain activity in those who did not use the brain exercises. Brain activity held steady for the rest. "We've seen 80-year-old people improve from being sluggish and slow to having the mental performance level of a 35-year-old," says Merzenich.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Askazombiehousewife said...

Makes me want to play bookworm :-)

9/16/2006 4:38 PM  

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