Brain training is big news. But does it actually work? With the Brain Test Britain experiment we planned to find out – and we needed your help.

Millions of people worldwide do some form of computer-based brain training every day. It seems to make sense that by regularly ‘exercising’ your brain with special tests and puzzles, you can improve your ‘brain skills’ and become better at everyday thinking tasks. But does brain training actually work? Recent research suggests that the scientific evidence is lacking.

The Brain Test Britain experiment was the world’s biggest scientifically valid experiment ever with thousands of members of the public participating to help us answer, for the first time, the question: does brain training work?

THE EXPERIMENT HAS NOW CONCLUDED AND THE RESULTS ARE IN!…

The experiment followed 11,430 people over six weeks to see what effect, if any, playing brain training computer games would have.

While players got progressively better at the games, the gains were not transferable, Nature journal reports.

Players gained nothing in terms of general reasoning, memory, planning or visuospatial abilities, experts found.

All of the study volunteers were viewers of the BBC One science programme Bang Goes The Theory.

The games tested were designed by scientists from the Medical Research Council and the Alzheimer’s Society.

To test the games, participants were asked to do brain training “workouts” for at least 10 minutes a day, three times a week for a minimum of six weeks.

All were randomly assigned to one of three brain training groups.

For a third of the volunteers, the sessions were designed to train their reasoning powers, planning and problem-solving skills.

The second group played games designed to train short-term memory, attention, mathematical abilities and visuospatial skills.

The remaining third were given web-browsing tasks that didn’t target any specific cognitive skills.

Tests before and after the training showed none of the interventions boosted people’s ability to do everyday thinking tasks, although they did get better at playing the individual games and the specific cognitive tasks these involved.

Dr Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council, said: “The results are clear.

“Statistically, there are no significant differences between the improvements seen in participants who played our brain training games, and those who just went on the internet for the same length of time.”

Clive Ballard of the Alzheimer’s Society said: “This evidence could change the way we look at brain training games and shows staying active by taking a walk for example is a better use of our time.”

Rebecca Wood of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust said: “This suggests that ‘brain training’ does not improve people’s cognitive ability.”

You can find out more about our work on the project here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/results/braintestbritain/index.html

The results in detail:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/results/braintestbritain/_in_depth.html

Play the games here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/results/braintestbritain/4_brain_training_games.html

Client: