Brain "speed" games that lower dementia risk
The specific, concentration-heavy cognitive games that boost acetylcholine, a brain-protective neurotransmitter that declines as we age. (Solitaire & Candy Crush don't help.)
Here’s a New Year’s resolution suggestion you won’t find anywhere else:
Take a few minutes to learn about acetylcholine—a brain chemical linked to reduced risk of dementia that older people can boost by playing specific kinds of speed-based brain games, according to new research.
Why is acetylcholine vital for cognitive health after 65?
Acetylcholine (ACh) is a neurotransmitter critical to decision making and detecting errors. It’s prevalent in the nervous system, hippocampus, which plays a big role in memory, and other areas of the brain. We lose 2.5% of acetylcholine every decade after age 40 or 45; without it, we’d be in a fugue state, unable to cognitively function.
Catastrophically low levels of acetylcholine are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
The near-term rise in expected dementia cases among Baby Boomers
Thus, people in midlife or older have a great interest in preserving and generating as much acetylcholine as possible, especially after 65. Roughly 10% of American adults age 70 or older suffer from a form of dementia. But as Baby Boomers age, the total number of people with dementia will rise by several million in the United States alone in the coming decade.1
The specific brain games that stimulate more acetylcholine
A recent McGill University study2 showed for the first time that brief but taxing cognitive “workouts” helped reverse the decline in acetylcholine in people 65 or older. These workouts were brain games that test memory under a compressed time frame, sort of like playing rapid-fire rounds of Concentration on a timer.3
Ten weeks of daily speed-based brain training (about 30 minutes/day) increased acetylcholine activity in brain regions that support attention, memory and executive function by 2.3%—offsetting about a decade of normal age-related decline.
(A previous study had shown that these specific speed games reduced dementia risk, but scientists weren’t sure of the mechanism. The recent McGill research revealed acetylcholine as the mechanism.)
A specific kind of cognitive workout helps, and passive games don’t
Each of the speed-based games forced players to concentrate, pay attention to visual details and rely on memory. In the older adults who played these speed-based games, acetylcholine levels remained higher for up to three months.
Notably, more passive cognitive games, including video games, Solitaire and Candy Crush—which is to say, games that didn’t tax players’ concentration levels under time constraints, and didn’t force them to memorize rapid-fire information—did not raise acetylcholine levels in a control group, the research showed.
The upshot: The intensity of a brain game’s “cognitive workout,” ie, the depth to which it forces you to concentrate your attention under time pressure, seems to matter greatly.
McGill researchers did not evaluate other kinds of cognitive activities that require intense concentration, such as chess, debate or reading long and challenging passages about an unfamiliar subject.
Misleading headlines cognitive research
I often talk about “longevity literacy,” and brain research is a topic that requires a big dose of it.
This research, published in October (which I’ve been remiss in reporting on AGING with STRENGTH until now—mea culpa) spawned several misleading headlines claiming in several lower-quality online sites that claimed, for example, that playing the speed-based cognitive games leads to younger brains, improves memory, or reverses aging—none of which are true.
NPR, on the other hand, accurately reported a substantive summary of the findings and an interview of one of the McGill researchers. Read or listen to that report for more on acetylcholine’s relationship to lowered dementia risk.
Increase acetylcholine through food
You don’t need to play games to boost your acetylcholine reserves. Choline, which is converted into acetylcholine, is found in many foods, including:
eggs
beef liver
soybeans, kidney beans
chicken breast
cod
quinoa
shiitake mushrooms, broccoli and Brussels sprouts
Here’s wishing you a healthy, peaceful and prosperous start to 2026.
https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-u-s-dementia-trends
Attarha M, de Figueiredo Pelegrino A, Ouellet L, Toussaint PJ, Grant SJ, Van Vleet T, de Villers-Sidani E. 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. 2025 Oct 13;13:e75161. doi: 10.2196/75161. PMID: 41084791; PMCID: PMC12559824.
The researchers used two games from BrainHQ.com called Double Decision and Freeze Frame. You can play a sample game by going to the website, scrolling down to the area called “Try A Few Exercises,” and hit start on the screen just below. (To make playing easier, enlarge the game window first, so it fills your screen.) The butterfly-filled screen at the top of this article is from that sample game.