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Nintendo and the Brain Age Series: A Perfect Partnership for Cognitive Fun

By
Nick White
October 8, 2024
It's curious that we don't have a standardized test in clinics to determine if our brains are active and healthy, unlike for physical fitness.

We have tests like body weight, BMI, cholesterol levels, and so on to assess physical fitness, but there's no equivalent for brain fitness. However, thanks to an innovation by renowned neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, we now have the Thinkie sensor, a tool that can track our brain activity from moment to moment. The sensor pairs real-time visual feedback of your brain activity with Brain Meter, Brain Age assessment, and a suite of scientifically proven Thinkie games.

Thinkie games are based on the Nintendo platform's Brain Age series, also known as Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, which first launched in Japan in 2005. The Brain Age series has seen several subsequent releases over the intervening years, the latest being Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training for Nintendo Switch, released in Japan in 2019, and then in Europe and Australia the following year.

"Thinkie is like yoga for your brain."

At the heart of the Brain Age Series is the famed neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, a charismatic avatar who guides players through a variety of brain-training activities. With Dr. Kawashima's expertise and the versatility of the Nintendo Switch platform, players enjoy stimulating challenges designed to enhance memory, problem-solving skills, and overall mental agility. This advent in brain training was intended to make brain training available to everyone, thus demonstrating that you can train your brain at any age.

While Dr Kawashima may be better known for his work on Brain Age, he is also an acclaimed neuroscientist practicing at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. There, he is Professor in the Department of Functional Brain Imaging at Tohoku's Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC). Dr Kawashima conducts research into functional brain imaging, development of brain functions, and dementia prevention. As discussed above, his research is also integral to the Thinkie sensor, which is produced by our sister company, NeU.

Just as Dr. Kawashima asserts in Nintendo's Brain Age series, regular training with Thinkie can lead to positive effects on your daily cognitive function, including:

  • Cognitive speed: Accomplish tasks at work and home more efficiently
  • ‍Attention ability: Hone your ability to organize office work and daily tasks simultaneously‍
  • Better decision-making skills: Improve your ability to make judgement calls and plan for the future
  • Stress tolerance: Mitigate stress at work, home, and in daily life‍
  • Episodic memory: Enhance your ability to retain information and reduce the difficulty of memorization ‍
  • Inhibitory ability: Exercise more self-control over frustrations and importune reactions
  • ‍Positive mood: Get more out of daily life in general through an improved sense of well-being

Thinkie is the latest advance in a long line of scientifically proven brain training tools -- only now, you can exercise both body and mind, and get immediate feedback in the process.

Learn more about the science behind Thinkie, join our waitlist for the upcoming launch, and sign up for our newsletter at the footer of this page.

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