Do Brain Training Games Actually Work?

This site is built out of cognitive tests, so the question deserves a straight answer rather than a sales pitch.

The part nobody disputes

Practise a task and your score on that task goes up. Do the digit span test ten times and you will hold longer lists — partly through better grouping, partly through simply knowing what is coming.

Researchers call this near transfer, and it is not in question. The argument is about everything beyond it.

The part that is unsettled

Reviews of brain training reach different conclusions. Harvard Health puts it bluntly: when researchers use rigorous methods, the benefits of these apps and games often evaporate, and the advice there is to treat them as entertainment rather than as brain care. A 2024 research review said something similar — little evidence that any program improves thinking in general, though some may sharpen specific aspects of it.

Meanwhile a 2025 meta-analysis of brain training games reported gains in processing speed and working memory. Both things can be true at once — measured improvements on tested skills, weak evidence that they change your day.

What regulators actually punished

In 2016 the makers of Lumosity paid two million dollars to settle charges from the United States Federal Trade Commission over their advertising. The problem was not the games; it was claiming they would sharpen everyday performance and reduce cognitive decline without adequate evidence.

That case is why this site makes no such claims, and why you will not find a promise about memory decline anywhere on it.

How to read any brain training claim

• Ask what was measured — the trained exercise, or something outside it?
• Look for a control group that did something equally engaging, not nothing at all
• Watch for improvement measured on the company's own assessment
• Treat “supports”, “boosts” and “may help” as marketing, not findings

What the same sources suggest instead

The Harvard piece does not stop at scepticism. Its recommendation is to spend the effort on things with better evidence behind them — physical activity, sleep, social contact, keeping stress down — and to treat the apps as a pastime rather than as maintenance.

That is a reasonable position, and it costs this site nothing to repeat, because we are not selling the alternative either.

So why publish tests at all?

Because measurement and curiosity are worth something on their own. Knowing your reaction time is around 240 milliseconds, or that you hold seven digits, is interesting in the same way as knowing your resting heart rate — and our brain tests report those numbers against published data rather than against a training program you are meant to buy.

We sell nothing, there is no account, and no result on this site is presented as training.

What is the best game to train your brain?

For getting better at the game — whichever one you enjoy enough to keep doing. For anything broader, no game has been shown to be best, because the general benefit itself is unproven. If you want a measurement rather than a training plan, start with the reaction time test.

Is a brain training app worth paying for?

Only if you would pay for the entertainment. Free tests measure the same skills, and the evidence does not support paying for transfer to everyday life.

Can a brain game cut dementia risk by 25 per cent?

No game has been shown to do that, and we will not repeat a figure like it. Claims of that shape are exactly what the 2016 settlement was about.

What about older adults specifically?

Interest in this group is high and the evidence is no stronger than for anyone else. What can be said without overreach is narrow: some people enjoy these exercises, and a task with large print, no timer and no failure sounds is more pleasant to do than one built for teenagers chasing a record.

Measure, do not medicate

Take a test if you are curious about a number, and treat it as a number. If something about your memory or concentration worries you, that is a conversation for a doctor rather than for a website or an app.