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Nintendo Brain

The results of the study show that 10-year-olds playing the Nintendo Brain Training (or Brain Age) game showed no improvement in memory compared with children working through brain teasers with a pencil and paper. This conclusion challenges claims made that the game will give users' grey matter a workout and bump up their brainpower.

The study divided 67 students into four groups. Groups One and Two played the bestselling brain training game in addition to doing their regular school work; Group Three did puzzles with pencils and paper, and Group Four went to school as usual, with no extra work.

All the children were asked to solve math questions, memorize words, and take logic tests. The scientists conducting the tests discovered that the students who used a pencil and paper came out ahead of the group playing the Nintendo game.

On the memory tests, which included maps, the paper puzzles group showed a 33-percent improvement, but the Nintendo kids' performance dropped by 17 percent. The Nintendo and puzzle groups matched each other with an improvement of 10 percent in logic scores. In math, all four groups—even the group with no extra work—improved by about 20 percent.

Professor Alain Lieury, of the University of Rennes in France, studied the impact of the exercises over seven weeks. Professor Lieury concluded, "As a game, (Brain Training) is fine . . . but it's a game, not a scientific test."

Some observers challenged Dr. Lieury's assertion that if the games don't work for 10-year-olds, they won't work for adults.

Dr. Robert Sutherland, of the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, stated, "There are many processes going on in the elderly that are qualitatively different than those going on in children." He added that everything from reading to physical exercise can stimulate blood flow to the brain and prolong its healthy activity.

The kids in Dr. Lieury's study are at an age when they need little additional stimulation, he said. This may explain why the math scores improved in the group who had no additional training. While Dr. Sutherland suspects the results for a study in an older age group might have been more obvious, he agrees with Dr. Lieury's general conclusions.

"These games are probably okay, but you're paying a lot of money when a walk in the park with friends would be even better," Dr. Sutherland said. "And free."

But does this mean you should replace your Nintendo with a single alternative brain cure? A rowboat, perhaps?

"I wouldn't get stuck on one thing. A lot of older people think that there's something magical about Sudoku or a crossword. There isn't," he says. "The kinds of activities that are helpful are only narrowed down by the imagination."

In other words, whatever you decide to do: Use it or lose it.