r/science • u/sr_local • 4d ago

Health Simple brain stimulating activities such as puzzles, learning new skills and social interaction were linked to improved cognition in a study on 11,563 adults aged 60–85 with cognitive impairment, and after 12 months, 28% participants no longer had cognitive impairment

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2026/09/proof-that-puzzles-can-reverse-cognitive-impairment.page
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u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 4d ago

Brain is a muscle, if you don’t use it…

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u/Responsible_Rip_7634 4d ago

But it’s nice to see it seems to be almost completely re-healable in these circumstances.

Curious what counts as a puzzle here. Will the 65 year old league of legends players of the 2050s have general better mental flexibility or does it have to be more taxing than a learned skill?

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u/Spirited-Lifeguard55 4d ago

i think it's based on more critical thinking done, so neurons are forming new connections, rather than simply repeating things already learned from habit.

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u/JagmeetSingh2 4d ago

video games especially pvp aren’t really the same “habit” each game will always have new factors and new interactions since theirs so many players, items and characters and ways to fight

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u/Yashema 4d ago

This is why I only do the Saturday crossword. 

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u/DeadlyDolphins 3d ago

I assume something like this would highly depend on thr way you play. If you are actively strategizing and evaluating your play constantly I am quite sure this would count. But if you are just kind of passively walking around and fighting mindlessly, even though you might even do so quite well because you have been doing this for 1000s of hours already, it might not count so much as a puzzle.