Show HN: Strong Brain – Anti-Alzheimer's mental exercises | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Strong Brain – Anti-Alzheimer's mental exercises

strong-brain.com

18 pointskabowen19 comments

This post was heavily flagged by users, no doubt because of the controversial "Anti-Alzheimer's" in the title. I think that's a shame, since the site looks interesting and fun whether it prevents Alzheimer's or not. Feel free to try posting this again without that bit in the title.

Is there research indicating these types of activities stave off Alzheimer's? I'm skeptical, is all.

The site design is charmingly old-school.

Consensus on brain training from the scientific community:

http://longevity3.stanford.edu/blog/2014/10/15/the-consensus...

Thanks.

Key paragraph:

> “We object to the claim that brain games offer consumers a scientifically grounded avenue to reduce or reverse cognitive decline when there is no compelling scientific evidence to date that they do. The promise of a magic bullet detracts from the best evidence to date, which is that cognitive health in old age reflects the long-term effects of healthy, engaged lifestyles. In the judgment of the signatories below, exaggerated and misleading claims exploit the anxieties of older adults about impending cognitive decline. We encourage continued careful research and validation in this field.”

In contrast, see the 17 articles linked at: http://blog.strong-brain.com/mental-agility/research/ The situation is no different than that regarding plasticity. One can easily find such "consensus" statements in the pre-50s literature to the effect that brain structure and neuron "allotment" is fixed by adolescence.

There are some papers that claim it yes, but there are meta analysis papers that take those into account as well and overall conclusion is that it doesn't help with "fluid intelligence". One can develop new skills though just like with every other activity.

Meta analysis: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/49/2/270/

Scientific american article about it: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-training-doe...

A contrary open letter from over 100 neuroscientists: http://www.cognitivetrainingdata.org

> The site design is charmingly old-school.

Seriously. This site is one step above geo-cities.

There are currently no proven means to prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease. All we have right now are many methods with weak evidence for reducing the risk of the disease. It's mostly a crap shoot. I think the best advice right now is 1) get plenty of sleep every night 2) avoid head injuries

There are many others, use at your own discretion.

And just a few hours after I posted this I got into a car accident and hit my head. FML

I'd have to agree with you on this. Lumosity has claimed similar (positive) brain effects occur when playing its games online. Not sure the exact ratio, but I know for a fact there are many doctors that disagree these Lumosity games have a significant (if any) positive improvement to cognitive abilities/functions.

Maybe they don't stave off Alzheimer's (or maybe they do... who knows). But I'm betting they do exercise certain cognitive facilities if done regularly.

> The site design is charmingly old-school. Thanks, I take that as a compliment, since it's oriented towards oldsters. :-)

Hey, I absolutely meant it as such. I left this out of my original comment, but the design is clean and navigation is intuitive.

I've heard it said a few times by neuroscientists and doctors that the best thing you can do for your brain health is regular exercise (standard 30 minutes elevated heart rate stuff: like running or swimming).

Totally anecdotal but at least you can measure blood-flow to the brain and draw conclusions based on waste-product-metabolism, etc.

> Show HN: Strong Brain – Anti-Alzheimer's mental exercises *

* "This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease"

I do love the old school design as mentioned in another comment. However, there is probably about as much support for brain training to reduce Alzheimer's as there is for low carb diets to do the same. [1] We just don't yet know the genesis of dementia but we sure can come up with solutions.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15082091

We can't talk specifically to brain-training for alzheimer's, and we know, for instance, that brain-training doesn't work for actually making you smarter.

But the biggest protective effect against Alzheimers is years of education (ie >13 years of education is protective and it goes up from there). So it's plausible

The quality of quizzes is great, but this doesn't seem like a really great way of presenting them. Did you know that there's research that older people with dementia do remarkably better in an environment that reminds them of their youth? I can't find the research right now but it's interesting. Maybe there's a presentation format that reminds people of their youth - like a quiz show format - with buttons to press to choose an answer.

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