Fun fact

A slight diversion from the task at hand, but I thought I should make mention of the following article that appeared recently in one of Sydney’s daily newspapers - albeit the less august of the two.

It offers some comfort to a man who is rapidly closing in on the big 5-0, holds a day job that requires significant use of the mentioned skills, and who could do with improvement in all of them ...

PLAYING video games can prevent and even reverse deteriorating brain functions such as memory, reasoning and visual processing, a study says.

The University of Iowa study of hundreds of people age 50 and older found that those who played a video game were able to improve a range of cognitive skills, and reverse up to seven years of age-related declines.

"We know that we can stop this decline and actually restore cognitive processing speed to people," said Fredric Wolinsky, a University of Iowa professor of public health and lead author of the paper published in the journal PLOS One.

"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."

The study is the latest in a series of research projects examining why people, as they age, lose "executive function" of the brain, which is needed for memory, attention, perception and problem solving.