The dubious claims of brain training (and what actually works)

It could be argued that brain training that targets every facet of intelligence could demonstrably improve overall cognition. The difficult aspect would be creating a program that is able to target each facet within a reasonable time frame. Combining brain training with regular aerobic and anaerobic (weight training) seems to be the most promising.

Attempting to match the audio with the woman in the video feels like brain training.

Glad to watch your videos. Thank you for sharing. New subscriber here.

Hey the audio is still bad as of October 2023z

Every app that requires you to scan a code before using it is bogus to me. I need to scan a barcode on my phone before i get acces. user friendly my ass, good for old people my ass. Just another money hungry company

This is nothing new...."brain training." Alot of this is just basic biofeedback. Just more bells and whistles. ""FLOW?" Thats just a Term coined by an Author. Not in the APA's journal of terminology that I know of. At least that I am aware of. I now believe about 90% of Humanistic Psychology is pure garbage. But, thats just my opinion.

Is it an experimemt to make a video with the sound in desync?

Any thoughts on BrainTap?

this was a really interesting video.
For me, the only “brain training” I really do is frequently trying to learn new things and skills, or develop my existing skills. (I am still in school, so there’s that too)
I’ve been somewhat interested in this for a while though, since I looked a bit into it for a project in my first year biology class.
A lot of the studies I looked at investigated possible links between improving spatial memory and reducing the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like dementia.
The general idea was that people who displayed better spatial awareness/memory showed more activity in the hippocampus, which is one of the earliest and more severely impacted regions of the brain with these diseases.
The studies looked at stuff like how the brain of taxi drivers differed from average people, or how frequently engaging in activities like orienteering, or games that require navigating mazes and having good memory of the location (stuff like map knowledge giving an advantage in multiplayer games) can impact the brain, or possibly impact the risk of the neurodegenerative diseases.
They pretty much all concluded that while it is possible that this stuff could help, there would need to be many more studies, over a much longer period of time to make any definitive conclusions. I’d be really interested to see if this research goes anywhere, and can actually help people.

Even after so many papers being published daily you are saying there isn't any evidence, that too on the dawn of these technologies. Please be patient. Let's see what the future holds.

Yeah, audio is messed up. Hard to watch 😢

audio is super offset

Seems like im not the only one getting terrible auduio desync here. like 2-3 seconds bad

A difficult watch as video and audio are out of sync! Badly out of sync!

The audio is desynced by 1300 ms. If anyone needs to know.

Weird audio / video mismatch.

Great video though!

dunno what happened but I'm seeing huge audio desync on this video of 2-5seconds... not happening elsewhere, just this video

Man, I really had a BIG perspective shift that I already knew but hadn't fully internalized fall into place while watching this video. My brain is a part of my body. I can do all the armchair "brain training" I want from the comfort of a couch, and try to improve specific tasks, expand my knowledge base, broaden my horizons, etc. but my brain is a body part, which means it has to be physically taken care of, receive the right nutrition and physical maintenance in order to work at its best.
My near-daily walks improve my depression symptoms because I'm getting more sunlight and seeing birds and trees and shit, yes. But its also that my brain is part of my body, so taking care of my body IS taking care of my brain. I'm going to tuck away this wisdom in the same place I keep things like "drinking enough water wont cure all your ills, but its just that much more comfortable to experience your ills if you're not also thirsty"

There has been more solid studies released on lion's mane supplements in the past week or so, and I'm not particularly inclined to believe it.

Lumosity has helped me. Fact.

Is Micheal Merzenich's BrainHQ also those little games that do not generalize much?

It's all about helping the rich get richer and healthier while scew the poor. Let them eat cake and live on the street with no mental health care.

Definitely vouching for "trying new hobbies keeps your brain flexible!"

And yeah regular moderate exercise definitely helps alleviate SOME inflammation in SOME people - same goes for most of the other "do this to reduce inflammation" tips. But there are so many causes for inflammation that I would have really appreciated an *asterisk in there that most of these aren't one-size-fits-all solutions, and the science behind several of them is still being verified in general. Just like how this video is one huge *asterisk on "brain training apps make you smarter". 😉

We have enough people out there moralizing this like, "oh if you have a chronic illness then that means you're making bad choices, because if you just ate better, exercised, meditated, quit your job, did brain training, etc. then you'd be healthy like me; i am healthy therefore i'm a morally good person who makes Good Choices". This is something that bothers me a lot, as someone with several chronic conditions.

That was one of the smoothest ad segues I've ever experienced. Damn

I would like to see your video about iq ❤

promosm ✅

What do you think about the latest SciShow video on lion's mane? They suggest that there is some evidence that it works both in rats and humans, but we're not yet sure how exactly

Ok. Wait a second
I often hear you should do cardiovascular exercise for bla bla bla

I don't do any running or cycling or swimming or any of the "cardio" exercises due to various reasons (I do want to start again, but that is not the point)
But I do weight training and that makes my heart rate elevated. I go quite hard to the point at which after a set I find it very hard to talk. I need to wait 2 minutes before I can speak more than a few words and about 5 minutes before I can have a normal conversation.
So while my heart rate is not elevated throughout the session at gym and I don't push hard on all the exercises, is this enough of a cardiovascular workout? I go 5 times a week.
Or do I have to jog/cycle for like an hour a week to be able to reap the benefits of cardiovascular exercise

Fine. I'll exercise. LATER. But socialization? Eh. No.

What about Neurofeedback therapy? Could you guys do a video on that?

Hi, and thanks for making this interesting video! I just wanted to let you know that I experienced a delay between the audio and video on Nebula (Chrome on a Windows-laptop). Refreshing didn't work, and I couldn't find a way to report the problem, so I'm just letting you know here :)

Having played Dr Kawashimas Brain Age religiously as a young child with a DS, when I first heard that the studies on this topic are inconclusive at best, I felt my whole live was a lie...
It did help with some of the simple maths I faced in early primary school of course, but that wasn't the promise the games made from the outset.

I really hope that the possible video about IQ (denialism/antirealist) won't be something like: we all can be like Judea Pearl, von Neumann, Terrence Tao, Borges, Machado de Assis! There's no difference between them and any of us in terms of cognitive capacity! That sound's "democratic" and is the way usually people try to deny the existence of IQ. But it seems so illusory as to say that anyone can be a great fighter as Amanda Nunes, Wei Lee Zhang or a bodybuilder as good as Ronnie Coleman.

What a great video!

What do you think about in-person mental arithmetics?

Man I love this channel <3

Evidence for red meat claims?

Essentially, all training is brain training.
Learning how to ride a bike won't make you better at playing the piano or vice versa, but learning the piano can help you learn the guitar quicker.

😆PNAS

Jordy Peterstone is not going to be happy about cutting all of that red meat out of his diet. He's all about his all meat diet that supposedly improves his brain and lowers his depression... He also cries a lot, soooo... He might want to check his research again.