In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: Does brain training work?
Background: What is working memory and will improving it diminish ADHD?
Key Player: The lateral prefrontal cortex
Opinion & Analysis: The merits of the research
Related Topics: Senior citizens enjoy brain gyms; Can exercise help your brain?; The science of the brain
Reference: Science of the Brain Web Guide
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Do Brain Age and Sudoku Really Make You Smarter?
May 01, 2008 02:40 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
A new study shows that brain training may lead to higher “fluid intelligence.”
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A new study by two University of Michigan researchers showed that fluid intelligence, the kind of memory used to solve new problems, can be improved by training a person’s working memory.
Martin Buschkuehl, one of the new study’s researchers, explained in a Nature magazine article: “The new results are like learning to drive a car, and then finding that you are also better able to fly an aeroplane.”
Recognizing that working memory—the kind used to add up a list of numbers—and fluid intelligence operate on the same brain circuitry, Susanne Jaeggi, with Buschkuehl, gave 70 Swiss students memory quizzes called n-back tests, followed by a standard test of fluid intelligence that uses pattern-recognition tasks. Results showed that fluid intelligence was enhanced by the improvements in working memory, which required some of the same fundamental skills, such as the ability to focus attention.
The news may not surprise many Americans, as the country’s consumers—many of them baby boomers—spent $225 million on brain fitness software like Brain Age in 2007.
Other studies have shown related brain function improvements: in 2005, researchers argued that Sudoku could diminish the risk of dementia, prompting senior centers to create “brain gyms.” More recently, a study of children with ADHD showed that video training could improve “working memory.” But there’s been little evidence to show that this kind of improvement translated to everyday “smarts” until now.
However, some science writers wonder how long improvements in fluid intelligence might last. Clive Ballard, a researcher for the Alzheimer’s Society, called for more compelling proof and suggested doing a clinical trial. He argues, “There is much better evidence to say that if you were going to spend 30 minutes a day doing something … you’d be better off doing physical exercise than brain training.”
Others, like Phillip Ackerman of the Georgia Institute of Technology, questioned the study’s overall significance: “Based on 100 years of research on human intelligence, fluid intelligence is not closely related to professional success.”
Martin Buschkuehl, one of the new study’s researchers, explained in a Nature magazine article: “The new results are like learning to drive a car, and then finding that you are also better able to fly an aeroplane.”
Recognizing that working memory—the kind used to add up a list of numbers—and fluid intelligence operate on the same brain circuitry, Susanne Jaeggi, with Buschkuehl, gave 70 Swiss students memory quizzes called n-back tests, followed by a standard test of fluid intelligence that uses pattern-recognition tasks. Results showed that fluid intelligence was enhanced by the improvements in working memory, which required some of the same fundamental skills, such as the ability to focus attention.
The news may not surprise many Americans, as the country’s consumers—many of them baby boomers—spent $225 million on brain fitness software like Brain Age in 2007.
Other studies have shown related brain function improvements: in 2005, researchers argued that Sudoku could diminish the risk of dementia, prompting senior centers to create “brain gyms.” More recently, a study of children with ADHD showed that video training could improve “working memory.” But there’s been little evidence to show that this kind of improvement translated to everyday “smarts” until now.
However, some science writers wonder how long improvements in fluid intelligence might last. Clive Ballard, a researcher for the Alzheimer’s Society, called for more compelling proof and suggested doing a clinical trial. He argues, “There is much better evidence to say that if you were going to spend 30 minutes a day doing something … you’d be better off doing physical exercise than brain training.”
Others, like Phillip Ackerman of the Georgia Institute of Technology, questioned the study’s overall significance: “Based on 100 years of research on human intelligence, fluid intelligence is not closely related to professional success.”
Headline Links: Does brain training work?
Researcher Martin Buschkuehl reports, “[The subjects] said that after the training they were more attentive. They could more easily follow lectures, or had less trouble understanding the papers they read.”
Source: Nature
Professor Ian Robertson, a neuroscientist at Trinity College, Dublin, said, “Our bodies are all getting healthier and we are living longer and the biggest threat to being able to enjoy that is the functioning of our brains.”
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Wired explains the n-back task: “[A] sequence of images is presented every few seconds and subjects are asked to match a picture to an identical one that came previously, say two pictures before it. Buschkuehl’s subjects, however, also heard a second stream of letters and had to match the sounds at the same time as they matched the visuals.”
Source: Wired
Read the official report, “Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory,” by Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, published April 28, 2008.
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (registration required)
Background: What is working memory and will improving it diminish ADHD?
Prior to the University of Michigan study, researchers in Stockholm, Switzerland demonstrated that video training could improve the working memory of children with ADHD.
Source: Clinical Psychiatry News
“Working memory,” a term coined by Allen Baddelay and G.J. Hitch in the 1980s, lies midway between short- and long-term memory. Working memory is used both to store information and then to retrieve and manipulate it for some purpose.
Source: Brain connection
Using patterns of colored squares and testing for recall, scientists investigating the basic nature of working memory discovered that it functions like a digital camera.
Source: UC Davis
Key Player: The lateral prefrontal cortex
A Times of London article, “The Brain’s G-Spot,” shared the findings of a Washington University in St. Louis study demonstrating that the lateral prefrontal cortex had the highest brain activity during tests of fluid intelligence.
Source: The Times of London
Opinion & Analysis: The merits of the research
In his blog,”Not Exactly Rocket Science,” Ed Yong, a science writer who freelances for Nature magazine, finds the University of Michigan study promising but has some reservations. He asks, “How exactly does the training programme lead to better fluid intelligence? At what point will the benefits of extra training start to level off? And how long will it take for the programme’s effects to wear off, it they ever do?”
Source: Science Blogs
Jason Braithwaite, a psychologist at the University of Birmingham, argued that the new video technology isn’t any more effective than Sudoku or crossword puzzles. “With these tests, you are improving your practice at very specific things [such as short-term memory or reaction times], but that doesn’t necessarily mean it gives you a general cognitive benefit.”
Source: The Guardian (UK)
Related Topics: Senior citizens enjoy brain gyms; Can exercise help your brain?; The science of the brain
David Horvitz, 93, was one of the first visitors to the brain gym at an assisted-living center in Providence, Rhode Island. He recalls, “I’m a reader, and … I would have to reread a paragraph again and again. And I found after a couple of weeks that I wasn’t having to do that.”
Source: Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
Physical exercise can improve brain function, reports findingDulcinea’s article, “Exercise and the Brain.”
Source: findingDulcinea
Reference: Science of the Brain Web Guide
For more information on how the brain works, read findingDulcinea’s Web Guide to the Science of the Brain; it includes a section on “Improving Brain Fitness and Health.”
Source: findingDulcinea
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