If you walk down the aisle of any bookstore or scroll through an app store, you will see hundreds of products promising to keep your mind sharp.
For years, scientists have viewed these claims with skepticism, noting that while doing crossword puzzles makes you better at crossword puzzles, it rarely helps your brain function in the real world. However, the findings of a massive, decades-long study might finally offer a proven way to protect your aging brain. It was recently published in the medical journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and other top institutions have released data from the 20-year follow-up of the ACTIVE study, the largest randomized controlled trial of its kind. (Randomized controlled trials are among the most rigorous types of medical studies.)
The results are turning heads in the medical community. The study followed more than 2,800 older adults who were divided into different training groups. Some were taught memory tricks, like how to remember grocery lists. Others were trained in reasoning and problem-solving. A third group practiced speed of processing exercises.
While the memory and reasoning groups saw improvements in those specific tasks, they did not see a significant drop in their long-term risk of dementia.
The speed of the processing group, however, saw a different story. Participants who completed this specific training — and particularly those who came back for additional sessions — experienced a 25% lower risk of developing dementia 20 years later.
This isn’t your standard Sudoku. The exercise used in the study is a visual game designed to speed up how quickly your brain notices and processes information.
In the task, users look at a screen and must identify an object in the center while simultaneously spotting a target in the periphery. As you get better, the game speeds up and the background becomes more distracting.
Experts believe this works because it targets the brain’s fundamental processing speed rather than just teaching a strategy. It essentially clears the rust off the neural pathways that slow down as we age. When your brain can process visual information faster, it frees up mental resources for other complex tasks.
This research suggests that not all brain games are created equal. If you are looking to protect your cognitive health, you need to focus on exercises that challenge your processing speed and divided attention, rather than just testing your vocabulary or math skills.
While no game is a guaranteed shield against Alzheimer’s, this study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that the right kind of mental sweat can pay off decades down the road.