brain age

For my birthday, my mom and my sister Jennifer got me a very flashy brand-new Nintendo DS Lite, which Amazon delivered two days ago.

And as a first game, I asked for a copy of Brain Age, consisting of simple puzzles and exercises, moderated by the Cheerful Disembodied Head of Doctor Kawashima. The premise is that your brain needs use to stay fit, or as Doctor Kawashima's head puts it, "a busy prefrontal cortex is a happy prefrontal cortex" (Doctor Kawashima's head bounces charmingly when it says things like this).

Anyway, you start the game with a simple diagnostic that gives you your brain age (as opposed to your actual, chronological age). It had been a long day, and I was a little tired, and I'd had a campari and soda before I fired it up. So perhaps I should've known better than to take the test.

But still, I did, and I can tell you that it's hard to imagine anything more gloomy than to be in one's mid thirties, and have the Disembodied Head of Dr. Kawashima inform you that your brain is 43 years old. Actually, being in your mid-thirties and having someone inform you that your body is 43 might be even worse. But then, I'm superficial.

Happily, I did some brain training, and took a fresh test yesterday afternoon, and was much more pleased to find my brain age is down to 34, below my chronological age. I'm still not satisfied; I'm convinced my brain is much younger than that. But still, I'm feeling much less suicidal now.