By Elizabeth Kasper
Some researchers may use a challenging crossword puzzle or logic riddle to determine the speed and fitness of the brain.
Others are looking elsewhere to clock the brain?s reaction time ? the ear.
Scientists at Posit Science Corp., a San Francisco-based research company, have created a test and follow-up program to determine brain speed by charting how successfully one identifies and responds to auditory clues, measured down to milli-seconds.
?Auditory processing speed is important because much of the information we receive each day is communicated through sound, especially speech,? said the researchers on the company?s Web site. ?The faster we can take in information accurately, the better we can keep up with, respond to and remember what we hear.?
The 10-minute test provides ?sweeps,? sound bites that have an upward or downward chime, and requires the tester to click on corre-sponding arrows.
Test results echo current thought that brain speed and auditory processing slows with age. The aver-age response speed of testers in their 20s is 68 milliseconds, slowing to 87 milliseconds for people in their 40s and 145 milliseconds for those in their 70s.
However, Posit Science isn?t satisfied with that.
?Starting at about age 30, the speed with which you process things declines,? said Joe Hardy, director of research and development at Posit Science. ?What we?re working on is re-training the brain to process things rapidly.?
The result of this thinking is the Brain Fitness Program, designed to actually improve brain speed and accuracy with similar auditory exercises found in the test. Users of the eight-week program have boasted an average of 10 years? worth of improved auditory memory, and Hardy said a participant in his or her 70s could easily regain the mental sharpness of a 30- to 40-year-old.
People from all walks of life have completed the program, citing improvements in hearing, memory, mood and focus.
?I noticed that I can hear much better in noisy restaurants,? said Avram Miller, a former vice president of Intel Corp., on Posit Science?s Web site. ?I can remember phone numbers and addresses better. And everything is a bit more vivid.?
Eventually, Posit Science wants to provide participants with an entire ?fitness center? of equipment to use in retraining the brain, including measures for improving visual capacity, decision-making skills and memory.
?It?s much like physical exercise,? Hardy said. ?You want to work out the whole brain, not just do bicep curls.?
Brain speed and function have become buzzwords following recent research revealing that the brain is adaptable and ?plastic,? contradicting popular thought that gray matter was incapable of change.
?Many scientists believed that the brain was unalterable; once it was ?broken? it could not be fixed,? said researchers in Posit Science?s winter 2005-2006 newsletter. ?But ? evidence now shows that the brain remains ?plastic? throughout life: it can rewire or change itself in response to new learning.??
BYU professors have also seen changes in scientists? perceptions of the brain.
?We found, through training, that we can adapt the brain to new situations,? said David McPher-son, a professor of communication disorders and neuroscience. ?When a deficit occurs in one area, the brain can adapt to those changes.?
McPherson said audiology is important to his research. He has found simple phrases such as ?the boy threw the ball? generate different reactions in the brain than do phrases like ?the boy threw the refrigerator,? and this knowledge has ?opened up a whole other area? about how the brain works, he said.
?When we investigate the brain and ask it to do dynamic tasks, we learn quite a bit about the brain,? he said. ?As we look at the cutting edge of science in understanding the brain, we have transitioned from looking at it from a static point to providing dynamic stimuli .?
Hardy said this kind of work was the beginning of a new phase in brain fitness.
?What we?re looking at is a revolution in brain health,? he said. ?We want to change the way people look at the brain. You can stay sharp and focused at any age.?
Brain fitness comes at a price, however. The program costs $500, or testers can buy it pre-installed on the Dell 1100 desktop for $1,000.