Are Brain Training Apps a Waste of Time, Money?

(Credit: Shutterstock) Brain training games have been a hit among both elderly individuals hoping to keep their minds sharp, and younger people searching for a competitive edge. But are the mental jumping jacks and cortex curls worth the time and energy? That's a difficult question. A new review of scientific studies on mental exercise gives us good reason to be brain training skeptics — the latest volley in an ongoing debate between researchers. Authored by a team of seven researchers, the review analyzed over 350 papers assessing the effectiveness of various methods of brain training. They found that the evidence for improvement is weak at best, and that many of the papers suffered from methodological flaws that call their conclusions into question. Most importantly, they found that so-called "transfer effects" — the potential for specific exercises to confer wide-ranging mental benefits — are effectively non-existent.