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Towards a stronger science of human plasticity

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 18, pages 261–262 (2017)Cite this article

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People have been told that 'brain training' will make them not only better at playing certain games but smarter in general. However, evidence indicates that brain plasticity is specific to the acquired skill. The search for neural mechanisms of transfer of training-induced benefits needs to build on this evidence.

Plasticity can be defined as the brain's capacity to respond to experienced demands with structural changes that alter the behavioural repertoire1. It is crucial for the ontogeny of many organisms, including birds and mammals, and sculpts organisms into unique individuals. Plasticity may also ameliorate trajectories of cognitive decline in adulthood and old age2. Hence, the concept of a plastic human mind has attracted much scientific and public attention. The 'brain-training' industry nurtures the hopes of many people by promoting the idea that playing games will make them smarter, more alert and able to learn faster and better. Central to these claims are the concepts of generalization and transfer, according to which training enhances not only the trained skill but also performance on similar skills or even general cognitive processing capacity. If this were true, then training on a task involving a cognitive ability, such as working memory, would improve performance on many or all tasks that critically depend on that ability. The cumulative evidence to support these claims is weak. In relation to working-memory training studies, for instance, some meta-analyses report small but reliable positive transfer effects to other laboratory tasks of working memory, whereas other meta-analyses report average effects that do not differ reliably from null. Moreover, a recent review of the adult cognitive intervention literature has found little evidence for the assertion that brain training improves the everyday cognitive competence of adults and delays cognitive decline3.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank L. Carstensen, J. Delius, S. Kühn, U. Mayr and N. Raz for valuable discussions, and the Max Planck Society for continued support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, Berlin (Dahlem), 14195, Germany

    Ulman Lindenberger, Elisabeth Wenger & Martin Lövdén

  2. Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin (Dahlem), London, 14195, WC1B 5EH, Germany, UK

    Ulman Lindenberger

  3. European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, 50014, Fiesole, Italy

    Ulman Lindenberger

  4. Aging Research Center, Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Stockholm, 11330, Sweden

    Martin Lövdén

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  1. Ulman Lindenberger
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  2. Elisabeth Wenger
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  3. Martin Lövdén
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Correspondence to Ulman Lindenberger.

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Lindenberger, U., Wenger, E. & Lövdén, M. Towards a stronger science of human plasticity. Nat Rev Neurosci 18, 261–262 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.44

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