back to article Watch your brain LIVE in 3D, then train your mind from inside it

As we age, our brains' cognitive abilities decrease. No surprise there. But one team of researches has experimental proof of a therapeutic technique that can reverse that decline: video games. What's more, they've devised a way to directly stimulate your brain to improve its cognitive abilities, and created a 3D digital model …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What do you mean there's no app for this?

    Hopefully that will be fixed ASAP.

    1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: What do you mean there's no app for this?

      Do stick your Android or iPhone device within the fMRI machine with you.

      It will make for the most entertaining, if grisly results.

  2. poopypants

    Oh dear, I'm 61

    ...but I have over 500 Steam games. (Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to finish them.)

    1. Zimmer
      Facepalm

      Re: Oh dear, I'm 61, too..

      ..I signed up for Steam..and I've forgotten the username AND password...DOH!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh dear, I'm 61, too..

        I'm a bit younger, but I forgot where I put my urine.

        Nevermind, I found it. Argh.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    It's all fun and games...

    Until someone tries this system out on a slightly retarded lawnmower-man...

  4. Salts

    Best buy some stock...

    in Lumosity, can't find their name associated with this research, but this looks so good how could they ever let it pass :-)

  5. keithpeter Silver badge
    Windows

    Charlie Stross....

    ...has this knack of giving me nightmares.

    http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/09/zombies.html

    ...anything that staves off that is to be welcomed.

    PS: piano playing. That bit where it feels like your brain is dividing itself in half as you work with both staves. Has to help (I hope).

    "In addition, the game was adaptive [...] it adjusted the challenge level as the player improved, "keeping you right in the sweet spot, which our game developers called the 'flow state'," and the reward levels were set so that both the driving and sign-identifying skills needed to improve in tandem before the player could level up."

    'Flow' was explored by the philosopher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (pronounced 'chicks send me high' according to the man himself). The idea of a stimulus strong enough to elicit improved performance but not strong enough to discourage was articulated by Lev Vygotsky in the context of primary schooling. Google 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD) for more stuff.

    "The team has created video games specifically designed to challenge users by presenting them multiple streams of information in a distracting environment, a particularly difficult scenario for older adults."

    Birmingham New Street Station (UK) around 5pm on a weekday evening. Navigating through that would be equivalent to an hour or so of joystick pushing I reckon.

    Now, seriously, where do I buy this?

  6. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    El Reg Daily Bell Ringing Casts the Proverbial Spanner in the DOD GI New World Order SkunkWorks?

    There are games and there are games and then there is the Great Game and Greater IntelAIgent Games Players who play Life for Real in a Series of Virtual Games, which Defy Reality to Deny IT its Almighty Presents? :-) ....... Media Machine Man Management .... an Alien Prior Art Phorm [All Patents Preserved and Pending]

    One Ring to Rule Them All is that which Greater IntelAIgents Servers Supply.

    Wakey, Wakey, Rise and Shine, El Regers. A NEUKlearer Age has Dawned and does not Suffer from Fools nor Entertain them Either as Useful Tools.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: El Reg Daily Bell Ringing Casts the Proverbial Spanner in the DOD GI New World Order SkunkWorks?

      Hmmmm ? :-) …. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-flexes-its-muscles-with-threat-to-carry-out-new-form-of-nuclear-test-9224521.html

      Cometh the hour, cometh AIMen and Manna from Heaven/Original Information from New Spaces‽

  7. Wzrd1 Silver badge

    What is this in reality?

    Biofeedback 201.

  8. Crisp

    I can use my brain to fly through my brain to see my brain thinking about my brain?

    Mind. Blown.

  9. whitegoat

    Mind Control ???

    Can something you control with your mind be used to control your mind??? I wouldn't touch this with 20 year olds 10 foot cyber pole. Pls tell me your not too stupid to see what this is really to be used for...duh!

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