n-back training

I have had the latest issue of "Brain in the News" on my desk for a bit and finally got around to reading it. The thing that caught my interest was a report on something called "n back training." There has been a lot of interest in different types of brain training exercises. Most studies have found that they do nothing to stave off things like Alzheimer's disease, but can help with some types of cognitive processing. (there are are also arguments that they enhance quality of life in other ways, by providing mental stimulation that improves mood, but that is even less clear.)

The standard advice we hear about aging is to do things like work crossword puzzles, listen to music, or learn a new skill. The theory is that two things might happen in our brains. First, we might establish denser neural pathways so that when one path gets lost we have other paths available. Second, by continually accessing different regions of the brain they get "exercised" and the neural pathways don't get lost.

The exercise called n-back training is the only thing shown to actually improve the ability to reason and solve problems. It is difficult to explain, but basically you try to remember whether a specific cue occurred n times ago in a series. A simple example would be a mono 2-back series of letters...

A D A F Q R Q A F A

Here you would be expected to recognize that the second A came 2 times after the first, the second Q was repeated, and the last A a repeat from 2 back...Does that make sense? Most training is done with dual cues, both auditory and visual. Apparently, doing this exercise for 20 minutes a day for 20 days improves reasoning. I'm going to try it.

Here is a website...
http://www.soakyourhead.com/Default.aspx