SAN FRANCISCO — New data from papers published in science and medical journals in 2024 shows tremendous growth in the evidence of efficacy of one particular brain fitness product: BrainHQ from Posit Science. The widely used web, Android, and iOS app was the subject of another 55 published journal articles in 2024.
There are now some 300 published peer-reviewed studies on the efficacy of BrainHQ, including 96 studies in healthy older adults, 4 studies in workplace performance, and 200 studies across a wide range of health conditions — including brain injuries (stroke, mild to severe traumatic brain injuries, chemobrain, cardiobrain, HIV Associated Neurological Decline, diabetes, movement disorders, autism, ADHD, and substance use, sleep, and conduct disorders); mental illnesses (depression, schizophrenia, bipolar); and neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s dementia, pre-dementia, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis).
BrainHQ is an outlier in the field. According to a comprehensive systematic review of commercially-available brain training and brain games targeting older adults, the lion’s share of such offerings have zero peer-reviewed studies showing efficacy.
“We work with a global network of more than 500 university-based researchers,” observed Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science. “They have helped us design, test, refine, and validate our offerings. Thousands of hours of work go into a typical study, and those researchers are the real heroes in advancing our knowledge of the mechanics of brain plasticity and how we can harness it to drive gains in three critical areas: cognitive performance, everyday activities, and the health of the brain as an organ.”
For example, studies in prior years have shown the link between the exercises driving gains in cognitive performance and everyday activity and causing physical changes in the brain (e.g., the speed, accuracy, and strength of neural responses, the integrity of the insulation that surrounds neural connections, the functional connectivity between disparate regions of the brain, and hippocampal volume). The 2024 BETTER Aging study nicely expanded on those results through imaging, by showing not just gains in cognitive performance but also better maintenance of brain biomarkers of age-related atrophy.
Similarly, the J-MINT PRIME Tamba study from Japan (using a Japanese version of BrainHQ exercises) expanded on prior studies by showing the training can drive significant gains in cognition even among those at elevated risk of dementia (in this study, due to hypertension and/or diabetes). The study compared three different types of lifestyle interventions (diet, physical exercise, and brain exercise) against a control and found a 41% gain in a standard measure of global cognition in the brain exercise group using BrainHQ.
A study from Brazil in healthy older adults (using the Portuguese version of BrainHQ exercises), also showed significant gains in global cognition after 20 hours of training, which gains still persisted at the five-month follow-up.
A trio of studies of BrainHQ cognitive assessments were published in 2024. Two looked at the widely used BrainHQ UFOV® assessment, which measures speed of processing and useful field of view. A study from China used the UFOV assessment to evaluate brains of ping pong players and found an association between UFOV performance and brain health as measured through brain imaging. A study among patients with HIV Associated Neurological Decline found greater amounts of BrainHQ training showed greater gains in UFOV scores, even two years after training. In addition, a study on the norming and validation of dozens of new 3-minute remote BrainHQ assessments has cleared the path for using those assessments in a variety of contexts to establish baselines and ongoing monitoring of cognitive status — much as people are able to do at home with blood pressure or glucose levels.
Other studies in 2024 deepened understanding of the impacts of BrainHQ training across some previously studied health conditions, including: stroke, TBI, Chemobrain, HAND, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, Down syndrome, multiple sclerosis, pre-dementia, and cognitive aging.
Prior to 2024, many studies had been published in various types of pre-dementia and dementia (e.g., MCI, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s); however, 2024 saw the first BrainHQ case study in frontotemporal dementia published.
Also in 2024, there were more studies looking at the combined impact of BrainHQ and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which is also believed to enhance brain plasticity. Such trials had mixed results with some showing greater gains for combined intervention, but others showing no better results than using BrainHQ alone.
Among the 15 review articles citing BrainHQ in 2024 was one from a research team at the University of Hong Kong. That review cited thirty-five studies in dementia and pre-dementia, showing training improved memory. These findings align with the 2024 World Health Organization guidelines recommending cognitive training in dementia.
Benefits have been shown in hundreds of studies of BrainHQ, including significant gains in standard measures of cognition (attention, processing speed, memory, and decision making), in standard measures of quality of life (depressive symptoms, confidence and control, safety, health-related quality of life) and in real-world measures (health outcomes, balance, driving, hearing, and work). BrainHQ is now offered, without charge, as a benefit by leading national and 5-star Medicare Advantage plans and by leading medical centers, clinics, and communities. Consumers can try a BrainHQ exercise for free daily at https://www.brainhq.com.