The dubious claims of brain training (and what actually works)

Brain training has gotten a bad rep for saying they prevent Alzheimer’s disease or boost you to 200 IQ. But does that mean you should uninstall all your apps? Well, turns out that not all brain training is created equal. Find out what *actually* works.

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[TheVoidSinger]

dunno what happened but I'm seeing huge audio desync on this video of 2-5seconds... not happening elsewhere, just this video

[akidanis]

The audio is desynced by 1300 ms. If anyone needs to know.

[ErebosGR]

Essentially, all training is brain training.
Learning how to ride a bike won't make you better at playing the piano or vice versa, but learning the piano can help you learn the guitar quicker.

[exp]

Having played Dr Kawashimas Brain Age religiously as a young child with a DS, when I first heard that the studies on this topic are inconclusive at best, I felt my whole live was a lie...
It did help with some of the simple maths I faced in early primary school of course, but that wasn't the promise the games made from the outset.

[fiveminutefridays]

Man, I really had a BIG perspective shift that I already knew but hadn't fully internalized fall into place while watching this video. My brain is a part of my body. I can do all the armchair "brain training" I want from the comfort of a couch, and try to improve specific tasks, expand my knowledge base, broaden my horizons, etc. but my brain is a body part, which means it has to be physically taken care of, receive the right nutrition and physical maintenance in order to work at its best.
My near-daily walks improve my depression symptoms because I'm getting more sunlight and seeing birds and trees and shit, yes. But its also that my brain is part of my body, so taking care of my body *IS* taking care of my brain. I'm going to tuck away this wisdom in the same place I keep things like "drinking enough water wont cure all your ills, but its just that much more comfortable to experience your ills if you're not also thirsty"

[AroundTheBlockAgain]

Definitely vouching for "trying new hobbies keeps your brain flexible!"

And yeah regular moderate exercise definitely helps alleviate SOME inflammation in SOME people - same goes for most of the other "do this to reduce inflammation" tips. But there are so many causes for inflammation that I would have really appreciated an *asterisk in there that most of these aren't one-size-fits-all solutions, and the science behind several of them is still being verified in general. Just like how this video is one huge *asterisk on "brain training apps make you smarter". 😉

We have enough people out there moralizing this like, "oh if you have a chronic illness then that means you're making bad choices, because if you just ate better, exercised, meditated, quit your job, did brain training, etc. then you'd be healthy like me; i am healthy therefore i'm a morally good person who makes Good Choices". This is something that bothers me a lot, as someone with several chronic conditions.

[ChiefsFanInSC]

It's disingenuous to say that IQ isn't an important measure of intelligence. If you have an IQ of 110, you are going to find subjects like physics, math, etc., very challenging.

[MemClem]

That was one of the smoothest ad segues I've ever experienced. Damn

[stephaneboudreau]

Man, I think my visual cortex and auditory cortex are not functioning properly, I think I need some brain training to help.😂

[ana]

What do you think about the latest SciShow video on lion's mane? They suggest that there is some evidence that it works both in rats and humans, but we're not yet sure how exactly

[mattcofer]

What about Neurofeedback therapy? Could you guys do a video on that?

[dannyvanhecke]

I like debunking videos to protect people from scam artists, it's annoying how people can take someone like Deepak Chopra for example seriously. Keep up the good work, my favorite youtube couple.

[MoonMarshmallow]

Seems like im not the only one getting terrible auduio desync here. like 2-3 seconds bad

[jiversteve]

A difficult watch as video and audio are out of sync! Badly out of sync!

[lec_R]

Ok. Wait a second
I often hear you should do cardiovascular exercise for bla bla bla

I don't do any running or cycling or swimming or any of the "cardio" exercises due to various reasons (I do want to start again, but that is not the point)
But I do weight training and that makes my heart rate elevated. I go quite hard to the point at which after a set I find it very hard to talk. I need to wait 2 minutes before I can speak more than a few words and about 5 minutes before I can have a normal conversation.
So while my heart rate is not elevated throughout the session at gym and I don't push hard on all the exercises, is this enough of a cardiovascular workout? I go 5 times a week.
Or do I have to jog/cycle for like an hour a week to be able to reap the benefits of cardiovascular exercise

[SuperHotnessJom]

Fine. I'll exercise. LATER. But socialization? Eh. No.

[sambland]

It could be argued that brain training that targets every facet of intelligence could demonstrably improve overall cognition. The difficult aspect would be creating a program that is able to target each facet within a reasonable time frame. Combining brain training with regular aerobic and anaerobic (weight training) seems to be the most promising.

[charlesbenca]

Is it an experimemt to make a video with the sound in desync?

[jeremygreen]

Jordy Peterstone is not going to be happy about cutting all of that red meat out of his diet. He's all about his all meat diet that supposedly improves his brain and lowers his depression... He also cries a lot, soooo... He might want to check his research again.

[MarcusGarfunkel]

Yeah, audio is messed up. Hard to watch 😢