The inventors of speed training, Dr. Karlene Ball and Dr. Daniel Roenker, initially commercialized the product through a small business called Visual Awareness Inc. In 2007, as Posit Science began to build visual brain-training exercises, researchers from Posit Science met with Drs. Ball and Roenker to discuss collaborative opportunities. Those discussions led to the acquisition…
The “speed training” used in the ACTIVE Study was originally developed by Dr. Karlene Ball and Dr. Daniel Roenker. In their original studies of the basic science of visual attention, they developed a computerized assessment tool to measure the “Useful Field of View”—the visual area over which information can be extracted at a brief glance…
Crossword puzzles (and sudoku, and the like) are a great way to spend an afternoon. But no randomized controlled trials have ever shown that doing crossword puzzles improves cognitive function, and no study has ever shown that starting crossword puzzles can reduce the risk of dementia. While studies have shown a correlation between doing cognitively…
Cholinesterase inhibitors (like Aricept, Reminyl, or Exelon) have been shown to slow the rate of decline of people who already have Alzheimer’s disease. However, in a number of large-scale randomized controlled trials, they have failed to protect healthy people from going on to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
Physical exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, has been shown in randomized controlled trials to improve certain aspects of cognitive function, particularly executive function. However no randomized controlled trial has yet evaluated whether these effects reduce the risk of dementia. Diet/nutrition studies typically track what people report eating, and establish correlations between eating patterns and cognitive outcomes.…
This is the first result from a randomized controlled trial to show that any intervention—brain training, physical exercise, diet/nutrition, or drug—can cut the risk of dementia in healthy people.
More than 5 million Americans are living with dementia, with a new person developing dementia every 66 seconds. In 2016, the costs of dementia will be over $236 billion. [source: Alzheimer’s Association]
Plasticity-based training drives a very specific type of change in the brain, called “implicit learning” (also called perceptual learning, or non-declarative learning). This kind of learning is like learning to ride a bicycle—it drives significant brain change that can last a very long time. A child can learn to ride a bike in 10 hours—a…
There are literally thousands of scientific papers in the field of brain plasticity documenting brain changes in animal models as a result of training programs. Researchers have now specifically studied plasticity-based training (very similar to the speed training in the ACTIVE Study) in animal models of aging, and have shown that plasticity-based training drives changes…
Neuroscientists now recognize that the brain is “plastic”—or capable of change—at any age. This ability to change—what scientists refer to as “brain plasticity”—is fundamental to how the brain perceives, thinks, remembers, and makes decisions. By building certains kinds of specific brain-training exercises based on the principles of brain plasticity, scientists can drive specific changes in…
