Top 15 Brain Teasers and Games for Mental Exercise

Over the last 2 years we have posted close to 100 puzzles, teasers, riddles, and every kind of form of mental exercise (including lengthy interviews with top neuroscientists!).Which ones have proven most stimulating (of the puzzles and teasers, not the interviews)? Well, we could answer that question in a variety of ways, but I'd suggest this metric: by averaging two ranks for each of the brain teasers: the rank for the number of comments left, and the rank for total traffic received. Without further ado...here you have:

Top 15 Brain Teasers and Games for Mental Exercise

1. Can you count?: Basketball attention experiment (Interactive).

2. Which way is the bus heading?.

3. Words in your brain: do you know where words are "stored" in your brain?.

4. Please Spot the Differences.

5. Do you think you know the colors?: Quick, try the Stroop Test.

6. Clinically proven Stress Management tip.

7. Riddle for the Whole Brain: The Blind Beggar.

8. What is going on with these pictures?.

9. Brain Teasers for the Weekend: a few challenges to exercise your attention and working memory.

10. Consider Linda's job prospects: riddle, or obvious?.

11. Count the Fs in this sentence.

12. Please find the missing number here.

13. How many... exercise your Frontal and Parietal lobes.

14. Mental Imagery and Spatial Rotation challenge.

15. Enjoy this Sunday Afternoon Quiz.

As a bonus, you can also try and write some Brainy Haikus. To inspire you, below you have a few haikus written by our readers (given that novelty, variety and challenge are important for our brains, writing haikus equals -for most of us who are not haiku specialists- another form of brain teasers to exercise our brains).

- Amit:

Love, college, career.
A new world of transitions.
Will I survive? Yes.

- Kathy:

My release technique,
Forgive, forget, love all,
Meditate on that!

- Alan:

Through the microscope,
slice of brain stains pink and blue,
the wonder of thought.

- Justin:

Justin the genieus
Must spell check the word genius
to post this Haiku

- GTB, the skeptic, says

Haiku's are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

Enough?

If you want more brain teasers and games, you can always visit our BrainTeasers page.

Can We Pick Your Brain re. Cognitive Assessments?

If you could, you would. You can, but prefer not to know it?

More than any other organ, your brain is up to you. You are what you think, not just what you eat. Here's some food for thought:

Design your Mind

Setting cognitive and behavioral goals raises challenging and worthy questions: What do you want from your brain? Will you know it when you achieve it?

To attain the brain of our choosing, we must understand our selves and current abilities. Introspection and curiosity are helpful if they trigger and sustain the effort to enrich the mind. However, objective information which leads to informed assessment of brain function is often lacking.

Mind your Brain

Honesty. Openness. Self-awareness.

Irrefutable virtues, but in practice most people fall short. Few regularly appraise their brain skills; even so, the ability to accurately judge one's own mental performance is not guaranteed. I believe the first step to minding the brain is shedding hang-ups while offering and soliciting frank feedback from family and close confidants. In the clinical setting, routine cognitive screening and "mental check ups" are not currently practiced, in part due to time constraints and limited utility of traditional paper-and-pencil tests. From a public health perspective, the U.S. Preventative Task Force reviewed available evidence and could not determine whether the benefits of screening outweighs the risks (link here).

There is great promise in using computer-based cognitive assessments and innovative memory tests which are based on contemporary concepts in cognitive psychology. Highly desirable research aims will be to demonstrate their ability to 1) reliably capture a person's "baseline" cognitive abilities; 2) promptly detect intraindividual change; and 3) accurately predict risk of future decline.

Equally critical will be establishing public and professional buy-in to the notion that peeking at the brain is worthwhile. Complicating the situation, especially with aging, is a widespread ambivalence--even objection--to taking stock of our cerebrum. If cognitive decline or an Alzheimer's diagnosis would be the outcome, there is a common and unfortunate preference "not to know" (See Early Alzheimer's disease diagnostics: Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me) for a recent editorial addressing the research and public policy implications of such willful ignorance).

Mend your Mind

It is true that motivating people to seek ongoing assessment of their mental status will identify people who are experiencing signs of brain aging. The challenge will then fall to professional and research communities to demonstrate the benefits of early diagnosis and intervention. Delivering clinical excellence will require interdisciplinary innovation.

In establishing the Einstein-Montefiore Brain Aging Center in New York City, I prioritized two overlooked but essential modes of intervention: education and community outreach. The goals are to counteract a prevailing therapeutic nihilism which is no longer justifiable, and to mobilize communities to promote brain longevity. Such culture change will presage successful research and development of the therapies so desperately needed. Disease-modifying biotechnologies and astounding cognitive neurotechnologies may be on the horizon, but the time is now to pique your brain.

SharpBrains readers: I would like to pick your brains on this subject. Please post your comments and thoughts on the following provocative statements:

1) Even if my cognitive abilities were declining, knowledge of this would leave me worse off.

2) I am concerned that family, friends, physicians, employers, or insurers would treat me differently if they found out I had cognitive decline.

3) Understanding my cognitive strengths and weaknesses will motivate me to establish and adhere to a personalized brain fitness program.

Thank you!

For a related article, you can read Alvaro's Computerized Cognitive Assessments: opportunities and concerns.

-- Dr. Joshua Steinerman is Assistant Professor of Neurology at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he established the Einstein-Montefiore Brain Aging Center and directs the Neurodegenerative Disease Clinical Trials Program. He is also Founding Scientist at ProGevity Neuroscience.

The Future of the Aging Society: Burden or Human Capital?

(Please note that this is my personal take at the discussions that took place in Dubai as part of the Global Agenda Council on the Challenges of Gerontology put together by the World Economic Forum, and builds on the work of my colleagues, but it does not represent a formal document or statement of position. Simply put, we would like to engage your brain in defining the challenges and outlining/ executing the solutions).

Context: The Challenges of the Aging Society

The world is aging. This is occurring in two ways: through shifts in the age structure that will eventually lead to many more people reaching older ages than ever before, and through continued success in extending life. Less than 100 years ago, life expectancy was between 30 to 40 years. Today, close to 800 million citizens are 60 and over.

And aging in healthier ways. Aging has incorrectly been associated with decline and decay, when in fact many people live healthy into older ages. There has been a synchronous extension in life expectancy and quality of life - the average 65-year-old today is much healthier, physically and mentally, than the average 50-year-old of 100-150 years ago - when most existing institutions were envisioned and created.

Healthy life can be further extended with existing knowledge. The fact is the onset and progression of fatal and disabling diseases, disorders, and disability can be postponed using well-researched basic measures of public health, environmental and behavioural changes, and medical technology interventions. The same methods may be used to improve or maintain mental and physical functioning.

Our healthcare and retirement systems are on bankruptcy track - their premises are outdated. Existing institutions, policies and attitudes do not reflect the points outlined above, having been developed for a society that no longer exists. We need to get on the right track: aging populations represent potential resources that are currently untapped or underutilized.

The current disease-based research agenda compounds the problem: emerging biomedical research holds the promise of slowing down the biological processes of aging - thereby contributing to lower prevalence rates of a spectrum of diseases. Yet, given existing funding paradigms, there is not a well-integrated and funded research plan in place to drive the agenda.

Solution: Capturing the Longevity Dividend with a Healthy Aging Agenda

Getting our institutions and policies in the right track -given the growing extension of healthy life- can pay a series of economic, health, and other life course dividends. A course change can have a significant return on investment, and the absence of this course change will have a series of negative consequences globally. We need to capture the longevity dividend to benefit people of all ages, as well as older adults- stop thinking Burden, start thinking Human Capital to be maintained and deployed.

To capture this Longevity Dividend, we need to move the agenda forward in three complimentary areas:

1) Promote Healthy Lifestyles that help Maintain Physical and Cognitive Functional Abilities:

- Partner to Raise the Prevention Agenda: we need adopt a cross-sector life course approach to health promotion, engaging not only the health and insurance system but also the education system and the media sector. In healthcare, we need to integrate medical care and public health approaches to prevent and ameliorate chronic diseases and conditions - geriatric medicine offer a valuable template for health care redesign that would be beneficial for all.

- Invest in Lifelong Learning: investing in education at every point in the life course, encouraging life long learning.

2) Redesign Environments to Foster Health, Engagement and Financial Security:

- Redesign Retirement Policies: redesigning the current retirement paradigm through enhanced flexibility offers a win/ win/ win scenario - for employers, employees, and society at large.

- Provide opportunities for productive engagement: create new generative roles and a host of opportunities for productivity and engagement by elder adults. These would confer huge societal benefits on unmet global needs, and if designed correctly, will promote the health of an aging society. One example is the “experience corps” model.

- Redesign Cities: redesigning cities to support healthy aging and independence and engagement. One of the transitions that will take place is that a significant portion of future cohorts will live in cities. Hence, we need to create necessary environments and transportations that will accommodate this trend.

3) Develop an integrated Healthy Aging Research Agenda: the disease-specific model needs to be supplemented by advancing research design to slow the biological processes of aging. We need to raise and integrate resources to invest in research for innovation in new social experiments, retirement and pension policies that work, continuum of living circumstances that encourage living in place, development of enhancements that encourage physical and cognitive functioning, basic biological research on aging, all built on a strong social compact.

There are 2 promising areas to start moving this agenda forward:

1) Propose a new Millennium Development goal: Include these pressing issues as one of the Millennium Development Goals, optimizing a full healthy life course and harnessing the opportunities of an aging world, including building effective approaches.

2) Propose a Healthy Aging agenda for Global 2000 companies: in partnership with the appropriate Councils, suggest research-based practices and policies: - Health promotion in the work place.
- Flexible retirement policies.
- Defining new roles for older adults and civic engagement.
- Invest in life long learning.
- Develop new technologies, products and services for an underserved, and growing, market.

Now, your turn:  can you help define the challenges and outline the solutions?

Aging, neuroscience, psychology blogs

2 excellent recent blog carnival editions:

Encephalon #58 (neuroscience and psychology), hosted by Walter at Highlight Health.
Hourglass #5 (biology  of aging), hosted by Laura at psique.

Enjoy!

Neuroplasticity and the Brain That Changes Itself

I first discovered Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain That Changes Itself, in a May, 2007 review in the New York Times. Intrigued, but caught up in myriad end-of-school-year responsibilities, the book was put out of my mind until later that summer, when our school’s learning specialist emailed to say she had just finished a fascinating book. The Brain That Changes Itself: Stores of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science, is a compelling collection of tales about the amazing abilities of the brain to rewire, readjust and relearn after having a slice of itself rendered dysfunctional. The first seven chapters captivated me for their personal stories; the final four chapters for the science and philosophy.

Part of what makes Doidge’s writing so accessible is he tells stories, and his stories just happen to incorporate brain science. As a result, his book is easy to digest. The neuroscience behind Doidge’s book involves neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to rewire itself. This means that the brain – our intelligence – is not something fixed in concrete but rather a changing, learning entity. On the face of it, this concept should not sound unusual, for it is what happens to individuals all the time as we go about the learning process, from infancy onwards.

What separates the stories in this book from daily learning is that the brains in question have been damaged in some form or other. Each tale is inspirational in that the individuals are able to overcome substantial, life-altering events, such as severe illness and stroke, in part thanks to the research of visionary scientists and doctors who developed methods and tools to facilitate neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity
The catchy phrase behind neuroplasticity is “neurons that fire together wire together”. The idea is that when two events (neurons firing) occur in the brain at the same time, the events (neurons) become associated with one another, and the neuronal connections (wiring) become stronger.

For many years, it was thought that each area of the brain had its own responsibilities; in other words, certain functions were localized or hardwired to certain brain areas. If something is hardwired then it is fixed and not capable of change.

However, while certain areas of the brain do tend to be responsible for specific functions, since the brain is plastic, areas overlap and even can co-opt one another’s functions. Initial maps drawn of our mental system turn out to be not as static as originally thought. If one pathway gets blocked, the brain is very good at finding alternative pathways.

As with any pathway, the more a particular path is used, the more ingrained it becomes, and pathways near one another become associated with each other. If a path is underutilized, over time it will be co-opted by other pathways that are branching out and need more space.

Hence, plasticity can be summed up in a few succinct statements all from chapter three – Redesigning the brain:

- Neurons that fire together wire together.

- Neurons that wire apart fire apart.
This is also stated as Neurons out of sync fail to link.

- Use it or lose it.

The Scientists
Doidge includes stories of the neuroscientists, among them Paul Bach-y-Rita, who pioneered the idea of “polysensory”. Polysensory refers to the sensory areas of the brain, which rather than only processing information from just the senses that normally report to those areas, are actually able to process information from any of the senses.

Michael Merzenich, a developer of the cochlear implant and founder of Posit Science, is another of the scientists noted by Doidge. Merzenich says that “You cannot have plasticity in isolation…it’s an absolute impossibility. (and Doidge continues) His experiments have shown that if one brain system changes, those systems connected to it change as well.”

Following on his heels is Edward Taub, who established constraint induced therapy, an alternative therapy for individuals felled by stroke. Taub’s research supported Merzenich’s findings that “when a brain map is not used, the brain can reorganize itself so that another mental function takes over that processing space.”

Alvaro Pascual-Leone’s experiments began with looking at what happens in the minds of those who read Braille, and transitioned to looking at how “our thoughts can change the material structure of our brains.” His goal was “to test whether mental practice and imagination in fact lead to physical changes.” This is, indeed, what happens when athletes use visualization to help prepare for sports trials.

In the last quarter of Doidge’s book, which is equally interesting for the clarification of theories, he discusses the work of Eric Kandel, Sigmund Freud, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Jordan Grafman, and several other scientists who are exploring neuroplasticity.

My Take-Aways
I see plasticity and metacognition as closely entwined. This combination of knowing that intelligence is not fixed and thus you can change it, and knowing how you learn, is immensely positive and powerful, and has huge implications for students of any age. I translate this to students who struggle with learning issues, and aging adults who fear their brains will fade. I also think it is important for teachers to understand the concept of brain plasticity, as a means for no longer pigeon holing students.

Of course, we take away from an author’s writing what we want or need to learn. As a provider of professional development to faculty, the final lesson I take from Doidge’s book is the power of multifaceted professional development to foster neuroplasticity in adults, and therefore enhance their creativity. I take the message that most of us have the ability to break out of habits and to learn something new, and each time we do this, it strengthens our ability to do it the next time!
Further Information
For more about Norman Doidge:

• interview on The Brain Science Podcast and Blog with Ginger Campbell

For more about some of the neuroscientists mentioned by Doidge:

• Edward Taub’s Revolutionary Approach to Stroke Rehabilitation – interview on the Brain Science Podcast
• Mixed Feelings – Wired Science’s video article on Paul Bach y Rita’s research
• Scientific American Frontiers: Changing Your Mind – The Sight of Touch story of Alvaro Pascual-Leone’s experiments

For more on brain plasticity and learning:

• Brain Plasticity: How learning changes your brain
• Neuroscience Interview Series: interviews with over 15 brain scientists on how to direct the property of neuroplasticity.

-- Laurie Bartels writes the Neurons Firing blog to create for herself the "the graduate course I’d love to take if it existed as a program". She is the K-8 Computer Coordinator and Technology Training Coordinator at Rye Country Day School in Rye, New York. She is also the organizer of Digital Wave annual summer professional development, and a frequent attendee of Learning & The Brain conferences.