SAN FRANCISCO — Over the past week, news stories on the “surprising” findings of the ACTIVE Study on dementia garnered headlines around the globe. The 20-year, NIH-funded, 2800-person study found a modest amount of speed-of-processing brain training (less than 23 hours of training spread over the first three years) had a significant 20-year protective effect against being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and related dementias — reducing risk by 25% as compared to the control group, while groups doing memory and reasoning training saw no significant effect. The team of scientists at Posit Science who brought the speed training from the lab to a global market (as the exercise Double Decision in the BrainHQ app) were not very surprised.
”When we started our work decades ago, Posit Science co-founder Dr. Merzenich and I wrote a paper for Progress in Brain Research, in which we provided the scientific community with a roadmap for how we planned to address cognitive aging, pre-dementia, and dementia,” noted Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science. “We explained our exercises would need to train brain speed and accuracy while being progressively challenging and engaging the production of key brain chemicals. With such properties, these brain training exercises would effectively drive brain plasticity — the ability of the brain to rewire itself — to improve and protect brain health.”
Dr. Merzenich is widely credited with discovering lifelong plasticity (the ability of the brain to change chemically, structurally and functionally). His pioneering work in plasticity was controversial for many years but is now taught as a core principle of modern neuroscience. He was amongst the first to harness plasticity for human benefit in his co-invention of the cochlear implant, which has restored hearing to millions with deafness. Dr. Merzenich has spent the past 30 years focused on computerized brain exercises as tools to improve brain health and performance.
In October, the INHANCE Study showed that BrainHQ speed-of-processing training could upregulate acetylcholine — the “pay attention” brain chemical that downregulates with age and plummets with dementia. This was the first demonstration that any intervention could improve the health of the key neurochemical system, and added to the hundreds of studies of BrainHQ showing that the chemistry, structure, and function of the brain could be improved with the right kind of brain training.
“The scientific puzzle pieces explaining the new ACTIVE results on dementia prevention have been assembled gradually over the past 20 years, through a global team of thousands of scientists spearheaded by Dr. Michael Merzenich,” Dr. Mahncke observed.
“The INHANCE Study in October was a critical pivot point,” Dr. Mahncke added. “INHANCE provided a biochemical explanation of why speed-of-processing training reduced the risk of dementia in ACTIVE. Scientists have known for decades that the onset of dementia is associated with decreases in brain health, including acetylcholine levels. Given the twenty years of science showing that BrainHQ drives brain plasticity — and the recent results showing improvements in acetylcholine – the only surprising thing to me is experts being surprised that this training reduces dementia risk.”
BrainHQ, which includes Double Decision, the exercise used in the ACTIVE study (as well as 28 other exercises based on principles of brain plasticity design developed by Dr. Merzenich), is available as a web, iOS, and Android app available at brainhq.com, the Apple App Store, and the Google Play Store.
The Double Decision exercise and other BrainHQ exercises are available in 13 languages — English, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, making it accessible to about 55-60% of the world’s population. Subscriptions are available for US$96 per year (about 26 cents per day).
BrainHQ has shown benefits in more than 300 studies. Such benefits include gains in cognition (attention, speed, memory, decision-making), in quality of life (depressive symptoms, confidence and control, health-related quality of life) and in real-world activities (health outcomes, balance, driving, workplace activities). BrainHQ is used by leading health plans, medical centers, clinics, and communities, and by elite athletes, the military, and other organizations focused on peak performance. Consumers can try a BrainHQ exercise for free daily at https://www.brainhq.com.