Brain training refers to structured mental exercises designed to improve cognitive abilities like memory, attention, and processing speed. These exercises typically take the form of apps, video games, or computer programs that ask you to repeatedly practice tasks meant to challenge specific mental skills. The idea is straightforward: just as physical exercise strengthens muscles, mental exercise should strengthen the brain. The reality, however, is more complicated than the marketing suggests.
How Brain Training Is Supposed to Work
The concept behind brain training rests on neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. In animal studies, repeated cognitive tasks have been shown to increase the density of connections between brain cells, promote the growth of insulating material around nerve fibers (which speeds up signal transmission), and remodel circuits in areas responsible for decision-making and impulse control. These are real biological changes.
The leap that brain training companies make is assuming that playing their specific games will trigger these same changes in humans, and that the improvements will carry over into everyday life. That leap is where the science gets shaky. Researchers acknowledge that while cognitive training likely induces some form of brain plasticity, the specific types involved, whether it’s strengthening of existing connections, reallocation of brain resources, or something else entirely, remain poorly understood.
What Brain Training Programs Target
Most commercial brain training programs focus on a handful of cognitive domains. Memory tasks ask you to recall sequences of numbers, spatial patterns, or word lists. Attention exercises challenge you to track moving objects or ignore distracting information. Processing speed games require rapid identification of visual targets. Problem-solving activities use puzzles or logic tasks to engage executive function, the set of mental skills that help you plan, organize, and follow through on goals.
A 2025 meta-analysis in the Journal of Pharmacy & Bioallied Sciences confirmed that these programs do target measurable skills: working memory, processing speed, attention, and executive function. The question isn’t whether these games test real cognitive abilities. It’s whether practicing them changes anything beyond your ability to play the games themselves.
Near Transfer vs. Far Transfer
This is the central issue in the brain training debate, and it comes down to two concepts. Near transfer means improving at tasks closely related to what you practiced. If you train on a number-memorization game and then score higher on a similar number-memorization test, that’s near transfer. Far transfer means those gains spill over into loosely related real-world skills, like remembering where you parked your car, staying focused during a meeting, or performing better at work.
Brain training reliably produces near transfer. You will get better at the specific games you play. Far transfer is another story. A comprehensive review in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review concluded that “the real effect size of cognitive training on far transfer is zero.” The authors found no compelling evidence that any type of brain training program improves performance on cognitive tests outside the trained domain or translates to real-life skills. This wasn’t a finding limited to one type of program. The review found little to no meaningful variation between different types of cognitive training.
What the Scientific Community Says
In 2014, a group of nearly 70 scientists from Stanford and the Max Planck Institute issued a consensus statement that drew a firm line. Their conclusion: the scientific literature does not support claims that software-based brain games alter neural functioning in ways that improve general cognitive performance in everyday life, or that they prevent cognitive slowing and brain disease. The statement specifically objected to claims that brain games offer a scientifically grounded way to reduce or reverse cognitive decline, calling such marketing misleading and exploitative of older adults’ anxieties about mental aging.
The signatories noted that the best evidence for maintaining cognitive health in old age points not to any digital product, but to the long-term effects of healthy, engaged lifestyles.
Regulatory Actions Against Brain Training Companies
The gap between marketing claims and scientific evidence has drawn attention from regulators. In 2016, the Federal Trade Commission settled charges against Lumos Labs, the company behind Lumosity, one of the most popular brain training apps. The FTC alleged that Lumosity deceived consumers with unfounded claims that its games could help users perform better at work and school, delay age-related cognitive decline, protect against dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and reduce impairment from stroke, traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and ADHD.
The original judgment was $50 million, suspended to $2 million due to the company’s financial condition. Lumosity was required to notify its subscribers of the action and give them an easy way to cancel auto-renewal billing. Going forward, the company was ordered to have competent and reliable scientific evidence before making any claims about real-world performance benefits, age-related decline, or health conditions.
Where Brain Training Does Show Medical Promise
While the consumer market has outpaced the science, there is a narrower space where structured cognitive training has earned legitimate medical recognition. The FDA has cleared a small number of digital therapeutics that use game-like formats to treat specific conditions under clinical supervision.
The most notable is EndeavorRx, a video game cleared by the FDA in 2020 as a treatment for ADHD in children. It’s not a consumer brain training app. It’s a prescription product designed to target and improve attention through specific sensory and motor challenges. Other cleared products include web-based and app-based programs for managing depression in adults and adolescents. These are distinct from commercial brain training because they went through a regulatory review process and target specific, diagnosed conditions rather than promising general cognitive enhancement.
How Long and How Often to Train
For those who still want to incorporate cognitive training, research on dosing suggests that more isn’t always better, and age matters. A 2024 analysis of the dose-response relationship found that adults under 60 saw optimal results with about 25 to 30 minutes per day, six days a week. Adults 60 and older needed roughly twice as long, about 50 to 55 minutes per day at the same frequency. In both groups, six sessions per week was the sweet spot.
Keep in mind that “optimal results” in these studies typically refers to improvements on cognitive tests closely related to the training tasks. The near-transfer problem still applies.
How Exercise and Activity Compare
One of the more revealing studies on this question came from researchers who divided 126 older adults into four groups combining different intensities of mental and physical activity. Some did intensive computer-based cognitive work paired with aerobic exercise. Others watched educational videos and did light stretching. After 12 weeks, all groups improved on thinking tests by roughly the same amount. The researchers concluded that the total amount of activity mattered more than the type.
Separately, research published in the journal Stroke found that older adults who exercised regularly reduced their risk of vascular-related dementia by 40%. That’s a striking number, and it comes from an activity that also benefits heart health, mood, sleep, and dozens of other outcomes. No brain training app can match that breadth of benefit.
The Stanford consensus statement put it plainly: cognitive health in old age reflects the long-term effects of healthy, engaged lifestyles. Learning a new skill, staying socially active, getting regular physical exercise, and managing cardiovascular risk factors have a stronger evidence base than any software product. If you enjoy brain training games, there’s no harm in playing them. Just treat them as one small piece of an active life, not a substitute for the rest of it.