Brain Health Blog

Author Archives: Michael Scanlon

Brain Food Alert: Beware Tilapia!

We’ve previously recommended fish as a food that’s particularly good for your brain - in large part because it’s high in omega-3 fatty acids. While this holds true for many fish, one of the most popular, Tilapia, actually contains very little of the beneficial fatty acids according to new research from Wake Forest School of [...]

Cognitive training and aging

K. Warner Schaie and Sherry L. Willis are two of the more important researchers in the area of aging and cognitive training. They oversee the Seattle Longitudinal Study, which followed adults across many years as they grew older, regularly monitoring their cognitive status. Among their most important findings:

Through cognitive training (exercises for the brain), older [...]

Memory problems in aging men

Men more likely to have problems with memory and thinking skills
CHICAGO – When it comes to remembering things, new research shows men are more likely than women to have mild cognitive impairment, the transition stage before dementia. The research will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April [...]

Brain game development: Lumos Labs raises $3 million

Since we launched Lumosity last year, we’ve heard lots of feedback from users saying you love the brain games, and the feeling of getting smarter and seeing your improvement. One thing many of you have requested is more exercises and games. Well, we’ve just raised $3 million from 2 top venture capital firms, as well [...]

Brain Performance Index - What is BPI?

Your Brain Performance Index (BPI) is how you measure and track your cognitive performance, and compare your ability in one area to another. All active Lumosity users have a BPI. You can check yours in the My History section, or if you’re not already a member you can sign-up and get your BPI by playing [...]

Protect your brain with daily caffeine

It seems there’s no end to new reasons to drink coffee. From PhysOrg:
“A daily dose of caffeine blocks the disruptive effects of high cholesterol that scientists have linked to Alzheimer’s disease. A study in the open access publication, Journal of Neuroinflammation revealed that caffeine equivalent to just one cup of coffee a day could protect [...]

Brain Training for Kids

Children can learn and re-shape their brains faster than anyone else. Not surprisingly, we’ve found that teenagers who train with the Lumosity brain games improve dramatically. There is also increasing support for the idea that training can help address the cognitive symptoms of ADHD.
Dr. Robert Myers describes some activities that can help a child deal [...]

Brain Games for Your Site

You can embed mini-versions of Lumosity tests with our new Brain Game Gadgets. An example is below. If you want to have Path Finder on your blog or website, click “Embed” from the widget and follow the instructions.

Path Finder is based on the classic test of executive function, Trail Making, Part B. You can also [...]

Brain Game News from the Weekend

A few good articles about brain training that featured Lumosity were published in the last couple days:
NY Times: Exercise Your Brain, or Else You’ll…Uh…, by Katie Hafner.
Yahoo! Tech: Brain Game Can Boost IQ…, by Christopher Null.
BC Gaming: Game Review: Lumosity, by Alexandria Jackson.

Intelligence and your perfect sense of pace

Think you’ve got rhythm? Well, now there’s a reason beyond musicianship and dance-floor bravado to claim an accurate sense of the beat:
Good rhythm is correlated with general intelligence.
Fredrik Ullen and a team of researchers in Sweden found that people who most accurately tap out a beat also do the best on intelligence tests. [...]