14 DAY TRIAL // While some scientists are busy trying to turn the fountain of aging into the fountain of youth, several other specialists claim to have already figured out a way to slow the mental decay associated with old age.
Their solution is one easily accessible to pretty much anybody: a video game named Road Tour.
According to the University of Iowa researchers who took the time to investigate this issue, said video game helps up mental processing speed.
Furthermore, it improves on skills whose efficiency tends to go on a downward spiral once a person begins to age.
“We know that we can stop this decline and actually restore cognitive processing speed to people. So, if we know that, shouldn’t we be helping people? It’s fairly easy, and older folks can go get the training game and play it,” paper lead author Fredric Wolinsky explained.
Following their playing this game for a total of 10 hours, men and women over the age of 50 found that their brains behaved as if they were three years younger.
As well as this, the effects lasted throughout the course of an entire year, Newswise explains.
The same source informs us that this video game owes its ability to slow mental decay to its having been designed in such a way that it teaches the players to remember certain bits and pieces of information while ignoring the distractions that come their way.
By helping the players improve on the speed at which their bran can process information, Road Tour helps widen their field of view amongst other things.
“As we get older, our visual field collapses on us. We get tunnel vision. It’s a normal functioning of aging. This helps to explain why most accidents happen at intersections because older folks are looking straight ahead and are less aware of peripherals,” Fredric Wolinsky commented on the importance of this achievement.
Check out the video below to learn more about how this game works.
