

The Science Behind 'Brain Training' - tokenadult
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/the-science-behind-brain-training/283634/

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mbarbir
I work for a company that combines wearable technology with iOS brain training
games (with neurofeedback and cognitive techniques) and which has yielded
similar results in high performance athletics. Like Cogmed, clinical trials
will take years to validate - but our early stage adopters, organizations like
Red Bull and sports franchises like the Seattle Seahawks, continue to see
meaningful results and are very upbeat.

[http://www.senselabs.com](http://www.senselabs.com)

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randomaxes
Does your Chief Science Officer really have a PhD from Capella University?

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therobot24
according to his linkedin, he has 2 PhDs from Capella, first in Psychology,
then a respecialization in Sports Psychology

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Encosia
In this same vein, people here might be interested in Lumosity[0]. I've been
using it for a few months, on and off (I'm terrible about not doing it
consistently each day), and it's interesting enough that I'd probably
recommend at least trying it to most anyone.

It's hard to say whether I'm just getting better at the games themselves
through repetition, rather than improving the underlying skills necessary to
play them, but I definitely have improved significantly over time.

[0] [http://lumosity.com](http://lumosity.com)

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YZF
I did Lumosity for some time. It's quite evident you get better at some of the
games through learning the game mechanics and optimizing around that. It's not
clear why that would necessarily transfer to general cognitive abilities. I
had some pretty good scores so it made me feel smarter ;-) (I wonder if
everyone has good scores?)

For a software developer, wouldn't it make more sense to practice something
closer to home? Learn a new programming language? Solve some programming
problem? You'd think that if your cognitive abilities can improve through
challenge (the "brain as a muscle theory") this would stimulate that and it
would almost certainly also be a benefit because it is more specific (so even
if your overall cognitive abilities don't improve your programming skills
almost certainly would).

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B-Con
I used Lumosity for about a year. I did it fairly consistently about every
other day and my wife did it with me about every third day.

Personally, I thought it helped. I'm obviously a very biased source and a good
number of biases come into play if I try to evaluate it's effectiveness on me.
But for what it's worth, after doing it consistently I felt like I was a
little more mentally alert in areas of life that I had been weaker. And so was
my wife. Without going into the details, I think we both boosted some of our
weak points a little.

If nothing else it was a fun way to warm up my brain in the morning.

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YZF
I have a little anecdote there... My wife started playing some of the games on
my account and that really impacted my engagement because the scores were now
a mix of both of us. Just shows the importance of gamification and how it can
be messed with...

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Scaevolus
Dual-N-Back is a simple, brutal way to stress your working memory, and there
are a lot of studies behind it.

[http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ)

