October 29, 2025
An online brain-training program that presents users with game-like cognitive challenges appeared to boost levels of brain chemicals critical for memory, focus and attention, according to a new report. The findings may explain in part how cognitively stimulating activities may help to bolster the brain.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal found that older adults who played the brain-training games for 30 minutes a day over 10 weeks had increased brain levels of acetylcholine, a chemical messenger that facilitates learning and memory. Acetylcholine is an essential part of the so-called cholinergic system that regulates cognition and other body systems. While cholinergic health tends to decline with age — about 2.5 percent per decade — the decline is accelerated greatly in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
“The training restored cholinergic health to levels typically seen in someone 10 years younger,” said Dr Etienne de Villers-Sidani, the study’s senior author and an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery. “This is the first time any intervention, drug or non-drug, has been shown to do that in humans.”
For the study, researchers enrolled 92 adults aged 65 and older. None had serious memory deficits or other health problems.
Half the volunteers were randomly assigned to engage in online brain-training games using a program called BrainHQ, which offers cognitively stimulating exercises that become progressively more challenging the better you do and require increasing levels of speed and attention. The other half served as a control group by using more passive computer exercises designed for entertainment, including an online solitaire card game. Each group was assigned to complete their activity on a computer tablet for 30 minutes a day for 10 weeks.
To track brain changes, researchers used a special PET scan and radioactive tracer that measures acetylcholine production in the brain. The scans allowed the researchers to assess how active the cholinergic system was before and after training.
Participants in the BrainHQ group had a 2.3 percent increase in cholinergic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, a part of the brain involved in learning, attention and executive function. Acetylcholine levels also increased in other brain regions, including the hippocampus, which plays a key role in memory and is among the first areas affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Those in the control group did not show significant changes in acetylcholine production.
The study does not prove that a brain-training program like BrainHQ can ward off Alzheimer’s disease. But the findings are consistent with other research showing that cognitive stimulation is good for the brain. Education is thought to build and fortify connections between brain cells, and studies have shown that the more years of schooling you have, the lower your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
And learning doesn’t have to stop with graduation from school. Studies suggest that mental challenges throughout life, whether through an intellectually challenging job or mentally stimulating hobbies like reading or solving puzzles, learning a new language or musical instrument, or attending adult continuing education courses, are all good for the aging brain.
The BrainHQ program is available online through a subscription and offers some free daily exercises. That program and others, such as Lumosity, Elevate, Peak and CogniFit, are also available through many libraries and senior centers.
The McGill research team is planning follow-up studies in people with mild cognitive impairment, a serious form of memory loss that often leads to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease. The findings were published in JMIR Serious Games, a peer-reviewed journal that explores the intersection of emerging technologies, health care and behavior change. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health.
By ALZinfo.org, The Alzheimer’s Information Site. Reviewed by Eric Schmidt, Ph.D., Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation at The Rockefeller University.
Source: Mouna Attarha, Ana de Figueiredo Pelegrino, Lydia Ouellet, et al: “Effects of Computerized Cognitive Training on Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter Levels using [18F]Fluoroethoxybenzovesamicol Positron Emission Tomography in Healthy Older Adults: Results from the Improving Neurological Health in Aging via Neuroplasticity-based Computerized Exercise (INHANCE) Randomized Clinical Trial.” JMIR Serious Games, October 13, 2025
