While Brain Age's advertising contains a number of questionable correlations (increased brain blood flow indicates beneficial mental exercise; improved game sco

While Brain Age's advertising contains a number of questionable correlations (increased brain blood flow indicates beneficial mental exercise; improved game scores indicate a delay of cognitive decline), I found it odd that a researcher trying to disprove them would pile on a few more assumptions: The study tested Nintendo's claims on 67 ten-year-olds. "That's the age where you have the best chance of improvement," Professor Lieury said. "If it doesn't work on children, it won't work on adults." I also found it dubious that the Nintendo and pencil-and-paper groups both improved 10% in logic tests, while the control group improved 20%... So both Nintendo and pencil-and-paper training effectively degrade your logic ability? Or perhaps his 10-year-old subjects are improving in all areas so rapidly that the extra hours spent doing the exercises are detracting from something more important to development -- which might not be the case for adult subjects. In Stimulate Your Neurones, a book due out this month, Professor Lieury says: "There were few positive effects and they were weak. Dr Kawashima is one of a long list of dream merchants." Ah, a book... It looks like someone wants to add his name to the list. :)