Posted on 09/07/2007 8:34:11 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Baroness Greenfield, the well known neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, has joined the likes of Nicole Kidman and Chris Tarrant by putting her name to a computer game designed to train the brain.
** Train your brain: Take the MindFit test
At the House of Lords she helped to launch a new fitness routine to play on the insecurities of the masses - the brain workout - and described the results of a trial that suggests that it could help arrest the ageing of the body's most complex organ.
"You are your brain and it is vital your brain stays in the best possible working order", said Baroness Greenfield, who admitted she does not use "MindFit" herself.
She stressed: "It is not a guarantee against getting Alzheimer's."
Although her endorsement may raise the eyebrows of some of her academic peers, she said that "MindFit is proven to work in scientific trials".
The MindFit research, presented earlier this year at the Eighth International Conference of Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease, is a double-blind clinical trial which suggests that computer-based training improves the brain functioning of the 50-plus population.
A trial by Amos Korczyn and colleagues at Tel Aviv University demonstrates that a regular workout with MindFit significantly increases a range of brain abilities, including short-term memory and simple reaction time, which deteriorate with age.
The two-year clinical trial assigned 121 volunteers, aged 50 years and over, to use either MindFit or a variety of popular computer games.
MindFit users experienced significantly greater improvement than the others, and in a variety of ways such as short term memory (15pc improvement) and simple reaction time (19pc improvement).
The MindFit group did better than those who played conventional computer games, such as Tetris.
Unlike other computer brain training games, MindFit tailors exercises to an individual's changing needs. "It is designed around you," she said.
Baroness Greenfield, who is a director of MindWeavers, continued: " As a population we are increasingly conscious of the benefits of physical exercise to our health. Our challenge is now to increase the amount of time spent on evidence-based methods of brain exercise to enhance the benefits that physical exercise may already offer to brain health".
The MindFit game, which retails at £89.99, is licensed by MindWeavers, an Oxford University spin-out company, through collaboration with the makers CogniFit, based in Israel.
MindWeavers' Chief Executive Officer, Mr Bruce Robinson, said: "MindFit raises the seriousness of the brain training craze and takes it to the next level."
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This was BBC first.
Mr Bruce Robinson, said: “MindFit raises the seriousness of the brain training craze and takes it to the next level.”
This brain training craze is series business! And it are hugh!
read, write, study, create....think, debate, drink, love...live.
I’m stuned!
I must inform my sister! This brain game will send the Moose after the cheese preventing the Moose from biting her!
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My sister was bitten by a moose!
Mmmmm...moose cheese!
Couldn't we just say "decrease" ?
Drunken brain ping for later when I am sober!
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