There are a lot of brain training and companies out there. So how do you know which one to choose? Read about BrainHQ’s background, methodology, and research to learn why BrainHQ is the clear choice for anyone who wants brain training that doesn’t just challenge the brain but changes it for the better.
More than 100 research papers, many of them published in prestigious journals like the Journal of the American Medical Association, show that our brain-training technologies are uniquely effective. These studies aren’t about other companies’ products, or about “keeping active” in general; instead, they have examined Posit Science’s technologies directly. What they show is that for the average person in the study, our exercises truly speed up and sharpen the brain. (Of course, every study is conducted on a different group of people; most of ours have been conducted on adults 50+.) This level of proof is unique among brain fitness companies. While other companies sell brain-training products, few have undergone any clinical testing, and, to date, no others have been subjected to this broad array of multiple independent, peer-reviewed studies.
Importantly, these studies show that the exercises don’t just improve your ability to do the BrainHQ exercises. BrainHQ is unique in that it contains exercises shown to “generalize,” or create improvements in cognition beyond the exercise. And that means you can think faster, focus better, and remember more in your everyday life. Learn more about our study findings.
Our in-house science team is led by one of brain plasticity’s world experts, Dr. Michael Merzenich. Our CEO Henry Mahncke also holds a PhD in neuroscience. We have a stable of neuroscience PhDs on staff who conceive, create, and update our exercises, and continuously test new training programs in independently funded studies (to date, over $13 million in independent grant money) with university collaborators. In addition, we work collaboratively with a global team of scientists from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, and other leading institutions to design and test our exercises. See our list of collaborators or learn more about our in-house science staff.
Posit Science takes a breakthrough approach to brain fitness. Our exercises don’t just drill memory or teach compensatory tricks. Instead, many of them target important roots of memory and thinking—the ability of the brain to absorb information from our eyes, ears, and other senses.
Posit Science’s BrainHQ exercises are based on the science of “neuroplasticity,” also called “brain plasticity.” Brain plasticity is your brain’s natural ability to remodel itself throughout life. The brain is always changing, sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. What BrainHQ’s exercises do is harness that change and direct it in ways that can enhance your overall performance and improve the quality of your life.
Given that the brain is the most complex machine on earth, this is no simple task for a brain plasticity researcher. Posit Science has gotten help in designing these exercises from dozens of world experts in this science. Each brings his or her own unique scientific expertise to our team. Their contributions have allowed us to develop brain-improving programs for many of the behavioral faculties that can be improved using your neuroplasticity.
BrainHQ exercises are grouped into six categories: Attention, Memory, Brain Speed, Intelligence, People Skills, and Navigation. Some of the exercises directly work out those skills, and you can see exactly how they might help you improve brain health. But, as you may have noticed, other exercises may not seem like they exercise those skills at all. Instead, they challenge you to improve in basic sensory skills—such as telling sounds apart or spotting objects quickly on screen. There’s a good reason to include such exercises when training your brain. Here’s why:
Sharpness starts with the senses
Our eyes, ears, and other sensory organs constantly send information to the brain. Our brains use this information to construct our experiences and memories, from the magnificent—a loved one’s face, a once-in-a-lifetime vacation, a wedding proposal—to the mundane—an acquaintance’s name, a grocery list, a drive to a nearby store.
The more clearly our brain registers this information, the better we can respond to it and store it, so that we can remember it and use it later. It’s important that your brain does a good job with all of the small details of what you see or hear. Missing those details results in most of the errors and confusion that can limit you—and it’s often impossible to even know what you’re missing. A brain that misses lots of details also naturally slows down quite a lot, so that it has a better chance of not making mistakes. Most importantly, if your brain is fuzzy and imprecise in its most elemental operations, all of its higher operations in thinking and acting will suffer. You can practice them forever, but they just can’t improve very much if you must always rely on fuzzy or incomplete information.
Improving your brain’s sharp representation of the details of what you see, hear and feel is a key step in improving your overall brain function.
For this reason, many of Posit Science’s BrainHQ exercises are designed to increase the quantity of sensory information the brain takes in and improves the quality with which the brain processes and records this information. This improvement has a ripple effect, improving all of the “higher” functions of the brain that work with that information.
Healthy roots able to absorb plentiful nutrients and water make for a stronger trunk, shinier leaves, and more fruit. A BrainHQ brain exercise strengthens the brain from the roots up. This approach is different from many others, which provide compensatory strategies, teach the brain “tricks” to remember, or drill the brain with memory exercises.
Root problems
Throughout life, our brains successfully absorb a lot of information from our senses. But for most of us, including almost everyone over age 40, our brains could do better. When we’re in our 30s, six core trends begin to affect brain function. Over time, these have noticeable impacts on our memory, thinking, and focus. They include:
When these trends first begin, we don’t notice problems in the moment because we (unknowingly) use context to fill in what we missed. In other words, we draw on our extensive life experience to “fill in the blanks” and make sense of information that is incomplete. Although this compensatory behavior helps us in the immediate situation, it doesn’t improve the quality of the recording (the memory). As the years pass, the gaps can become too big for context to fill in. When this occurs, it can be hard to catch and respond to the information even at the moment.
Many of the BrainHQ exercises are designed to reverse these root problems. Their primary goals are to:
The BrainHQ roots-up approach emphasizes “generalization,” or the extension of benefits beyond the trained task. These generalized changes are what improve quality of life.
You don’t have to take our word for the effectiveness of our approach. Many of our exercises have been subjected to thorough clinical testing and the results have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals. View a summary of clinical results.
Thousands of people have used our technologies, and many of them have shared their stories of their experience with BrainHQ. Read their stories.