Brain Game May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s and Other Dementias

A certain type of brain training appears to prevent or delay dementia by some 25% in people older than age 65, according to new research.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t memory or problem-solving tasks that moved the needle — it was an interactive computerized game that tested the ability to recognize two separate images in faster and faster sequences.

The game shows the user one of two vehicles in a desert, town or farmland setting. Next, a Route 66 sign appears briefly along the periphery, surrounded by additional distracting road signs. To do the training accurately, the player must click on the correct car or tractor and the location of the Route 66 sign. As players improve, the images disappear increasingly quickly.

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“We’re talking about a fundamental physical chemical change that we know really matters as a contributor to brain health,” Dr. Michael Merzenich, professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, told CNN in an earlier interview. Merzenich is the cofounder and chief scientific officer of Posit Science, which owns BrainHQ.

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