No benefits for brain training games: Western study finds no improvement in cognitive skills – London

If you have spent hours on brain training games trying to stay accurate, a Western University study might cause you to rethink your approach.

The article, published in the journal Neuropsychologia suggests that all this training has virtually no impact.

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The study involved 72 participants. A group of participants completed about 13 hours of two different brain training games.

"After completing this very long period of brain training, we tested them on two fairly similar tests to determine if brain training was improved," said Dr. Bobby Stojanoski, author Principal and Research Scientist at the Owen Lab of the Brain and Mind Institute of Western University

"What we found was that it was not the case. in fact, the group that trained for 13 hours did not perform better in tests than a group of control participants who never attended training. "

L & H The study was designed to pursue innovative research conducted by Western neuroscientist Adrian Owen in 2010. This study followed 11,000 people who "brainwashed" for six weeks and found that to be good in brain games does not improve the memory of e work and do not improve IQ.

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For the current study, Stojanoski said the researchers thought that if someone got "really, really well" to a test, "maybe you will get some improvements "on similar tests, but the research did not save this hypothesis and instead favored the results of 2010.

" Unfortunately, there is no evidence for this and our last study confirms this conclusion: that there is simply no generalizable benefits to brain training. "

Stojanoski said that it is better to focus on overall health. "Things like sleeping well, eating healthy, socializing with friends are really good, proven ways to help improve cognition and overall health"

The study was supported by the Fund's 39, research excellence Canada First, $ 66 million, BrainsCAN