Train Your Brain: The Science Behind BrainHQ

In this illuminating episode of Wellness Connection MD, Dr. McMinn and Coach Lindsay welcome renowned neuroscientist Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science and creator of BrainHQ. Together, they explore the science of neuroplasticity—how the brain can adapt, heal, and grow at any age—and discuss how BrainHQ leverages this power to improve cognition, memory, processing speed, and even reduce dementia risk.

Dr. Mahncke shares compelling insights from hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and groundbreaking clinical trials, including new research on brain atrophy in long COVID, and structural brain changes observed through fMRI. You'll also hear real-world stories of transformation—from stroke recovery to safer driving—illustrating the tangible benefits of personalized brain training.

Whether you're aging proactively, recovering from illness, or simply seeking sharper mental focus, this episode delivers hopeful, evidence-based tools to support your cognitive wellness.

✨ Key Topics Covered:

• How neuroplasticity rewires the brain across the lifespan
• The evidence behind BrainHQ’s cognitive training exercises
• Long COVID, depression, PTSD & brain fog: how BrainHQ helps
• Functional medicine, brain speed, and practical applications
• Real-life success stories and future visions for brain health

"Your brain is built to grow. It just needs the right kind of challenge."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Wellness Connection D.
Today we're going to explorethe powerful world of brain
training with neuroscientist DrHenry Manka, creator of BrainHQ.
Dr Manka walked us through thescience of neuroplasticity the
brain's incredible ability tochange and heal at any age and
how BrainHQ taps into thatcapacity using personalized
adaptive exercises.

(00:24):
He shares compelling evidencefrom major studies showing Brain
HQ's ability to improve memoryprocessing speed and even reduce
dementia risk.
We also dove into exciting newresearch on long COVID, brain
atrophy, mood disorders andreal-life impacts on things like
better driving and stressmanagement.
So whether you're recoveringfrom illness or just want to

(00:45):
stay sharp, brainhq offersscientifically validated tools
for cognitive health.
And Dr Maka reminds us yourbrain is built to grow.
It just needs the right kind ofchallenge.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast
with Dr McMinn and Coach Lindsay, where we bring you the latest
up-to-date, evidence-basedinformation on a wide variety of
health and wellness topics,along with practical take-home
solutions.
Dr McMinn is an integrated andfunctional MD and Lindsey
Matthews is a registered nurseand IIN-certified health coach.

(01:17):
Together, our goal is to helpyou optimize your health and
wellness in mind, body andspirit.
To see a list of all of ourpodcasts, visit mcmdcom and to
stay up to date on the latesttopics, be sure to subscribe to
our podcast on your favoritepodcast player so that you'll be
notified when future episodescome out.
The discussions contained inthis podcast are for educational

(01:38):
purposes only and are notintended to diagnose or treat
any disease.
Please do not apply any of thisinformation without approval
from your personal doctor.
And now on to the show with DrMcMinn and Coach Lindsay.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Good morning, Dr McMinn.
It is good to be back on theshow today with our listeners.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Well, coach, today we're going to touch on a very
important topic, and that isbrain health.
Specifically, we're going toexplore a concept of brain
training with an evidence-basedprogram called Brain HQ, which
can help you keep your brainsharp and can also help you when
things start to go off thetracks.
We have on the show today avery special guest to help us
break it down, and that is DrHenry Monca, phd, the CEO of

(02:19):
Posit Science, which makes BrainHQ.
He received his PhD at UCSF,which is University of
California, san Francisco, wherelifelong brain plasticity was
first discovered.
Before positive science, henryworked across biotech, medical
devices and video games as theyapplied to healthcare, and then
worked with the Britishgovernment on science and
technology partnerships.
Through his work with positivescience, he has likely been

(02:41):
involved in more studies ofcognitive training than anyone
on the planet.
You know, coach, many years ago,as a part of my functional
medicine practice, I puttogether a program to optimize
brain function and to helppeople with mild cognitive
impairment and early dementia.
Dementia is usually not causedby one big thing, but instead
there are many factors that cancontribute to cognitive decline.

(03:01):
Therefore, my program includedmany aspects, including classic
lifestyle measures, as well asmany other factors which, for
the sake of time, I won't gointo here.
If you would like moreinformation about that program,
then please go back and listento our podcast entitled Brain
Health from 2019.
As a part of my program toimprove brain health, both in
terms of preventive measures andtherapeutic measures, I became

(03:22):
familiar with a program calledBrain HQ.
It was being recommended bymany scientists and experts in
the field at that time,especially in the functional
medicine space.
There were many brain trainingprograms available at the time,
but Brain HQ seemed to stand outas the evidence-based go-to
program for brain training, andover the years I have
recommended it to many of mypatients and I have actually

(03:42):
tried it myself.
The Brain HQ program is widelyregarded as one of the most
evidence-based andscientifically validated
cognitive training programsavailable.
Its efficacy has been evaluatedin hundreds of peer-reviewed
studies, including large-scalerandomized controlled trials,
and this is in a field wheremany commercial brain training
programs just lack the rigorousevidence.
As an older adult myself, I cantestify that the number one top

(04:05):
concern of older adults isdementia, and unfortunately it's
becoming an epidemic.
I recently read that a whopping35% of Americans in their 70s
have some sort of dementia, andit even gets worse as folks get
older.
This creates huge problems forpatients, their families and for
society as a whole.
The total economic cost ofdementia in the United States is

(04:26):
estimated to be $781 billionper year.
Oh my gosh, that's just astaggering number.
Brain HQ has been around formany years, but what interested
me in discussing it on the showat this time is some interesting
recent research that was doneright here at UAB, the
University of Alabama atBirmingham, on using brain
training as a tool for healingthe crippling and life-altering

(04:47):
brain-associated symptoms oflong COVID, which may include
things like depression, fatigueand severe brain fog.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
And before we get into our interview, we have just
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Speaker 3 (05:56):
And without further ado, let's dig into keeping our
brains working like clockworkvia brain training with Brain HQ
.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
So for that reason we're very excited to have on
our show today Dr Henry Manka todiscuss Brain HQ, an exciting
and important program for brainhealing and optimization.
Welcome to the WellnessConnection MD podcast, dr Manka.
Thanks so much for joining ustoday.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
It's a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
So I get to be the co-host on this show.
I'm so honored.
I'm Lindsay and just curious,so what personally drew you to
this field and the mission ofBrainHQ?

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Well, you know, it's been a long journey and I would
say it probably began when I wasabout eight or nine years old.
To be honest, if we wind theclock back that far, when I was
eight or nine years old, I wasliving in Washington DC and my
grandfather started to developwhat we would now recognize as
Alzheimer's disease.
But then, you know, no one wasreally sure what was going on.

(06:54):
It was just sort of calledgetting funny as you got older
or senile dementia.
And even though I was quiteyoung, I remember what my family
went through to support him andtake care of him on that
journey and I saw the toll thatit took on my own dad who was
watching his father go down thatroad, and I've kind of carried
that with me throughout my life.
And you know, then I came out tograduate school at the

(07:14):
University of California, sanFrancisco here, and I had the
great honor of studying in afantastic lab run by the
legendary Dr Michael Merznik,who fundamentally discovered the
idea that the adult brain isplastic and can rewire itself.
And we don't need to thinkabout our brains as just wearing
out over time.
We should think about ourbrains as constantly
reorganizing and rebuildingthemselves.

(07:36):
And so you know thatfundamental insight that we can
rebuild brains with experienceand learning and training is
what led to the foundation ofBrain HQ.
But what led to my excitementand my own passion about the
project is, you know, my ownexperience with my grandfather
and that of so many people thatI know and love to sort of get
this idea that you know, brainplasticity isn't just a

(07:58):
laboratory phenomenon.
It's something that we can allput to use in our lives to enjoy
better, healthier brains andbetter, healthier lives.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
I love hearing your personal story there about your
grandfather and then how you'vetaken this from the lab to
clinical application.
That's really inspiring.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
It's a really mission-driven company here.
Mission-driven company here.
Just about every single personat Brain HQ, you know, has a
family member, a friend who'sgot a pretty deep connection to
you, know some brain healthdisorder or another, and it's
common enough, right?
I mean, brain health disordersare, you know, pretty ubiquitous
.
It's not hard to go to a roomand ask people to put up their
hands.
Hey, do you know someone inyour life who's been affected by

(08:41):
Alzheimer's or head injury ormental illness in some way?
You know, the brain is by farthe most complicated organ in
our body Some people call it themost complicated machine in the
known universe and there's alot of things that can go wrong
with it.
There's a lot of things thatcan go right with it, and that's
a very motivating thing to kindof figure out the science of,
but then, even more importantly,figure out how to put it to use

(09:04):
in the real world.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Well, let's jump in.
Explain to us some of the corescientific principles that Brain
HQ is built upon.
What theories about brainplasticity and cognitive
function are most central toyour approach to what y'all have
built here?

Speaker 4 (09:22):
Yeah, the fundamental idea, as you correctly call out
, there is the idea of brainplasticity.
And to really set the stagehere, you know, if you were to
rewind the clock to, let's say,I don't know, 1970, right, a
long time ago now and you wereto ask any neuroscientist how
does the brain work, everyneuroscientist would have said
the same thing.
They would have said thebrain's like a computer chip
inside your head, right, it'sgot wires, it uses electricity,

(09:44):
it processes information soundsexactly like a computer chip.
But that idea led to somereally wrong ideas about brain
health, right?
One of the wrong ideas it ledto was that, hey, the brain just
wears out over time.
You know, we know thatcomputers wear out over time.
We've all had the experiencethat hey, the computer just
doesn't work anymore, it's timeto get a new one.
And we kind of thought that'swhat happened to ourselves as we

(10:05):
get older.
You know, if you read papersfrom that generation of
scientists, you will read aboutthe wear and tear theory of
aging.
Right, we just wear out andthere's nothing to be done about
it, like a machine running outof gas.
And it also led to some badideas about brain injury, right,
I think we all know that if youdrop your computer hard enough
like it's going to break, you'renot going to fix it.
And I think that led to a lotof ideas about brain injury and

(10:27):
brain injury recovery as well.
And you know, what's importantabout the idea of adult brain
plasticity is that, hey, allthat's wrong, right?
Please do not think about thebrain as a computer chip.
It's not.
Your brain does not haveprocessing speed and it does not
have RAM and our heart justdoesn't fill up, like all those
analogies are just confusing andbad, right.
And what the idea of adult brainplasticity tells us is that our

(10:48):
brain is rewiring andrebuilding and reimagine itself
at any age.
You know, it happens when we'relittle kids, it happens when
we're young adults, it happenswhen we're older adults.
It happens if we have healthybrains, it happens if we have
unhealthy brains.
It is just how the brain works.
And once you really come toappreciate that at a basic
science, that the brain isplastic and reimagining and
rebuilding itself, it actuallyopens incredible doors because

(11:11):
all of a sudden you realize, hey, many of the things that go
right with the brain we can helpgo right even faster.
Many things that might go wrongwith a brain?
Hey, we can probably fix if werewire it.
And so you asked, you know,where does this science come
from?
Well, that's the idea of it'sbrain plasticity.
And then you know, morespecifically, if we think about
aging, for example, like, hey,what happens to the brain as we

(11:32):
get older?
Why is it that many people noteveryone, that's important, but
you know, many people start toslow down or exhibit some memory
problems?
And you know, it turns out thatthe brain starts to develop
this kind of noisy informationprocessing.
So, you know, as we get older,it's a little bit like our brain
is a radio and it's on a dialand it just gets a little bit

(11:52):
off the station, so there's morestatic coming in.
And if you've ever listened toa noisy radio, hey, it's harder
to pay attention, it's harder tounderstand what they say, it's
harder to remember what they say, and in fact, well, those are
all cognitive problems, aren'tthey?
And it turns out that as we getolder, for various reasons, our
brain gets kind of noisy, likethat.
And that's why, as we get older, it's harder to follow what a

(12:14):
kid says when they're talkingquickly, it's harder to hear
what someone says in a noisyrestaurant Harder to remember
what they say.
So what the Brain HQ braintraining exercises are designed
to do is take that power ofbrain plasticity, let's rewire
the brain and let's do somethinghelpful with it.
Let's take that noisyinformation processing in the
brain and let's clear it up.

(12:34):
Let's make informationprocessing in the brain faster
and more accurate and, as aresult, let's bring that radio
back on the tune.
And that helps people well,helps people hear and see more
clearly, helps them improvetheir attention, their speed,
their memory, and then evenhelps improve real-world
functional activities of allkinds, fundamentally because the
brain is just healthier andworking better as an information

(12:58):
processing system.
So that's what we can do withthis incredibly powerful idea.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Well, that's great.
Dr Maka, you know, one thing wehang our hat on on this podcast
is being evidence-based, and itseems like that's one of the
core principles of Brain HQ, ifI'm reading it right.
There are other brain trainingprograms out there, but none of
them seem to have quite thescientific rigor that Brain HQ
has.
And, by the way, let me beclear I have no financial
connection with Brain HQ.
I don't want anybody to thinkI'm promoting them for that

(13:25):
reason.
But let's dive right into it.
There have been hundreds ofhigh-quality studies on Brain HQ
, so please share with us someof the more pivotal studies that
most strongly demonstrate theeffectiveness of Brain HQ, and
what were the findings, the keyfindings of those studies.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
You're absolutely right.
You know, from the moment wefounded this company we've been
really deeply committed not justto science like hey, let's get
the idea of brain plus just youright but the idea of clinical
evidence.
And you know, hey, if aperson's going to spend time or
even money on a brain trainingprogram, like they should have
some reasonable confidence thatit works and it's going to help
them.
And you're right, and it's kindof you to say so, but we are by

(14:02):
far and away the leader in thisarea.
There's actually more than 300published scientific studies now
specifically using brain HQexercises that show in
large-scale randomizedcontrolled trials that it helps
people think faster, focusbetter and remember more, as we
like to say.
So I'll mention a couple ofthem in brief.
I was actually involved with oneof the first large-scale
randomized controlled trials ofany computerized brain training

(14:24):
program.
We did this study with MayoClinic and University of
Southern California back in theday and you know we did a
classic gold standard trial.
We took more than 400 healthyolder adults.
Half of them got randomized todo brain HQ exercises and,
importantly, half of them gotrandomized to a control activity
.
And what they did is theywatched and learned from
educational DVD ROMs.

(14:45):
This was back in the day.
You know things like CarlSagan's Cosmos or Sister Wendy's
History of Art.
So both groups were doingthings with their brains right,
but only the Brain HQ group wasdoing those things to make brain
information processing fasterand more accurate.
The other group was justlearning facts like in a class,
and what that study showed iswell dramatic improvements in

(15:06):
brain speed in the brain agegroup.
Beautiful improvements inmemory equivalent to about 10
years of cognitive function.
So people in their 70s wereperforming more like people in
their 60s afterwards.
And then beautiful improvementsin real world cognitive
function.
People saying hey, I can hearbetter at noisy restaurants.
I remember the names of peoplethat I meet saying hey, I can
hear better at noisy restaurants.

(15:26):
I remember the names of peoplethat I meet.
So that was just a wonderfulgold standard population.
Really, I think kind of set thefield on the right track of hey
, evidence matters.
We should be doing studies thatare as good as drug companies
or medical device companies inestablishing efficacy here, and
that's, I think, where we reallystarted to try and set the bar
between.
A brain training program issomething that's been shown to
work and there's a million braingames out there and hey man, I

(15:47):
you know, play one if you want.
But there's no evidence behindany of them.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
You mentioned processing speed.
How do you measure processingspeed?

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Oh, there's lots and lots of ways.
You know, one of the ways we doit in Brain HQ is we'll
actually just we have abeautiful auditory assessment or
a training exercise as well,where you hear two very brief
whistle sounds and you know, oneof the whistles might go up and
the other one might go down,like, and you hear them, and you
hear a pair of them, and ifthey're slow and far apart,

(16:18):
everyone can figure out hey, thefirst one went up and the
second one down.
But we make it harder andharder and harder to measure
your true brain performancelimits and as they get faster
and closer together, eventuallyyou can't quite hear.
Was that an up or a down, ordid the down come first or the
up come first?
And that measures what we callyour auditory processing speed
threshold right, and so if youare a young person with a good,

(16:39):
fast, healthy brain, you mightonly need 20 or 30 milliseconds.
That's a tiny little bit oftime between those two sounds,
but on the average, as we getolder, you might need 100
milliseconds, you might need 150milliseconds because your brain
is operating more slowly.
It's not done processing thefirst sound before the second
sound comes in, and so you can'tstraighten them out, and so

(17:00):
that's a very standard way thatwe and others use to measure
brain speed.
But there are lots of otherones as well, and there are many
people who would say and I'mone of them that I think the
central cognitive challenge ofaging, and a lot of other
conditions as well, is actuallyspeed of processing.
You know, we often think as weget older, well, we have memory
complaints.
Right, that's the main thing,and people do.
Don't get me wrong, butunderneath those memory

(17:22):
complaints is almost always aprocessing speed disorder.
That's contributing to thememory disorder.
Our brains just slow down, andthat's part of that noisy
information processing that wetalked about.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Hmm, I love hearing about all those studies.
It's really impressive thatthere's so many associated with
Brain HQ that y'all have done,and they're randomized
controlled trials, they're peerreviewed and it's robust data
that's coming out of that andyou're seeing the trends of real

(17:55):
outcomes, not just likecognitive or health, but also
like how this impacts daily lifetoo.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
And also that they're done with major institutions
like Mayo Clinic.
I think anybody can go outthere and find somebody and pay
enough money to do a study andmake their product look good
right, but you're not going tofool Mayo Clinic like that.
So the fact that you're doingthem with like UAB, Southern
California, Mayo Clinic, some ofthese major institutions, that
certainly gives it some credence.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
I'll just briefly say you know we were inventing a
field and I think if you'reinventing a field, it's really,
really important to put it onthose solid scientific grounds
and exactly the ways that youlay out there.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
It's really exciting to think that you've been on the
forefront of a revolution,really, so to speak, of just how
brain it's just like a wildfrontier almost to think about
the brain in this different wayand how that can impact our
whole world.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
You know, it really is an enormous change and you're
right to put it that way.
And you know, one of the bestkind of ways to think about it
is the physical fitnessrevolution.
Right, if you go back to the70s, that was a time where we
first started thinking that, hey, man, we all need to take care
of our bodies.
Right, we need to get someexercise and we need to eat.
Right, and if we do that, we'regoing to enjoy better physical

(19:15):
health and we're going to livelonger and we're going to live
better.
Right, we'll be able to do thethings we want to do with our
bodies.
But the physical fitnessrevolution, really, you know,
started at the feet and went upto about the neck is how I would
put it.
And it's only now that we'rerealizing that.
Hey, a lot of those ideas applyto our brain as well.
The brain is as much a part ofthe body as the heart or the

(19:36):
liver.
And, hey, if we do the rightthings with our brain, you know,
we can keep it healthy andsharp as well.
But it is a revolution.
You know, people often ask mehey, what's the biggest
challenge in this field?
And I always tell them the samething like it is inertia, right
?
You know, I still meet peoplewhen I talk to them about aging
and cognitive function and theysay well, you know, my

(19:56):
grandfather had Alzheimer's, soit's going to come and get me.
When it comes and gets me,there's nothing I can do about
it.
Like now, please.
That is a terrible way to thinkabout brain aging.
There are lots of things youcould do, certainly including
brain HQ, but a lot of otherthings as well to improve your
brain health.
You do not have to take therisk that you're going to get
Alzheimer's at 63 or 83 justbecause your grandfather did,

(20:18):
and you know.
Similarly, I talk to people whohave these very crystallized
ideas about brain health.
I talk to people like oh, I'mbad at math.
I've always been bad at math.
I can't learn a language.
I've never been able to learn alanguage.
Well, I respect your livedexperience.
Right, you are telling me thetruth, but let me just tell you
no such thing as a math brain.
There's no such thing as alanguage brain.
There are simply situationsthat you might have been better

(20:46):
or worse, where you know thequality of the brain
plasticity-based instructionthat you got, whether it was
around changing your brain towork better in math, or changing
your brain to work better inFrench or German, like all of
our brains can change in thosedirections and it's that feeling
that we're just stuck with thebrain we have.
You know, that's actually thefeeling that I want to change
the most when I talk to peopleabout brain health.
You know we can rewire andrebuild and make better brains

(21:07):
and it's just such an empoweringidea to realize that is in our
power, that's under our control.
There's things that we can doand you know I mentioned that
revolution.
We went through that physicalhealth revolution.
Everybody knows we can do withour body.
The next challenge is to gothrough it with a brain health
revolution and realize, hey, wecan do this with our brains as
well.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
I love that message of hope that you have.
That's beautiful, but I alsofeel like it translates to not
just our aging population, butto our middle and younger
generations.
What if me, as a parent, teachmy child hey, your brain is
something we're going to takecare of, and it can grow and you

(21:46):
can always work on these skillsand I don't label them as you
just can't like.
You have this type of brain,you're just not good at that but
instead foster those otherthings.
I love this message of hopethat you're bringing.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
I think it's empowering at every age,
certainly with kids.
I think one of the mostimportant thing a kid can
realize is that they can growand learn and change.
Right, and that's part of beinga kid and that's part of
growing up.
And, hey, that's true for a kidwho doesn't think they're good
at math, right, they can rewiretheir brain to be a good math
brain brain.

(22:19):
But it's in general, true.
You know there are theseincredible studies that came out
of Stanford around a growthmindset and you may have heard
of these and you know what theydid is they took kids in summer
school and split them into ahalf, a group that got sort of
ordinary summer schoolinstruction and the other half
of them got instruction that wasrooted in the idea that, hey,
learning changes your brain andyou may not be good at the skill
now, but if you change yourbrain you can get better at it.

(22:39):
And what they showed is that ifyou had that growth mindset, if
you understood that your braincan change, you actually got
better at school as a result ofthat.
Simplifying a very complex study, as you might imagine.
But you know that insight Ithink is exactly right, but it's
true when we're young adultsand middle-aged adults and so
forth as well.
You know, I think one thingthat can really happen during
our careers is, you know, we getkind of good at something and

(23:02):
we kind of want to rest on ourlaurels, right, like it's nice
to be good at your job.
But you know, what our brainreally craves is, our brain
craves new learning and newchallenge, right, you know I'm a
neuroscientist.
Sometimes this topic comes upwith me that people say, well,
hey, what is the brain for?
And mostly what people say is,well, the brain's for thinking.
And that's completely wrongfrom an evolutionary biology
perspective.

(23:22):
The brain's not for thinking.
It doesn't care if you think ornot.
The brain is to allow you tochange and adapt your behavior,
and we, as humans, have theseincredibly complex brains, and
that's why we can adapt ourbehavior in these incredible
complex ways.
Right, we can live successfullyin the Arctic.
We can live successfully in theArctic, we can live
successfully in the desert, wecan live successfully in
downtown San Francisco, becauseour brains change in response to

(23:44):
what we need them to do.
And that's incredibly true for,you know, adults throughout
their careers as well, hey,taking on new challenges,
pushing yourself in ways thatare outside your comfort zone.
You know that process ofcontinuous learning is going to
build a healthier, strongerbrain, even when you're
middle-aged, even when you're aparent and you're like tearing
your hair out because you'rebusy all the time.
You know that's actually goingto set you up for successful

(24:06):
brain health as you get older aswell, because you'll have built
that foundation as a youngadult or a middle-aged adult.
It's so important.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
Thank you for saying that.
That's really good to hear.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
I'll tell you a story , though I got to tell you.
My wife is a neuroscientist aswell and we probably talk a
little bit too much about brainsin my house, when he was 10
years old and he had donesomething he wasn't supposed to
do, you know, we were talkingabout it over dinner and he put
his head down on the table andhe said my brain made me do it.

(24:35):
And we thought, okay, all right, maybe that's enough brain
conversations for this poor kid,Probably taking more for this
than we really mean him to.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
That's an amazing story.
I love that.
Well, I'm going to switch gearsa little bit.
Are there any studies that arecurrently in process that you
could tell us details about thatyou're excited about, or more
information coming out down thepike?

Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah, there's always an incredible number of exciting
stuff going on with BrainHQ.
You know, researchers all overthe world reach out to us every
week, every month, and say, hey,I got funded.
I want to run a study.
I want to look at BrainHQ inschizophrenia.
I want to look at BrainHQ inhead injury.
I want to look at BrainHQ in,you know, rural children who
have ADHD.
I want to look at brain HQ andyou know rural children who have
ADHD.
I want to, you know, do allthese incredible studies because

(25:22):
all of our ideas around what wecan do with our brains continue
to grow and expand and change.
But you know, here's ahighlight that came out just
recently from your area, whichwas this wonderful first study
done in long COVID at theUniversity of Alabama, and this
was led by a wonderfulresearcher there named Dr
Jitendra Uswate, and you knowwhat he was interested in is.

(25:46):
You know, of course we've hadthis terrible COVID epidemic and
many people, most people gotbetter and that's good.
But you know, some number ofpeople have had these long COVID
symptoms and there's a lot ofsymptoms that come out right.
Fatigue is very common.
A challenge with gettingphysical exercise, called
post-exertional fatigue, forexample, is very common as well.
But one of the big symptoms iscognitive symptoms.

(26:07):
Right, people say, hey, mybrain is just slow, I feel foggy
, I can't concentrate, myworking memory is bad, and so
you know what's going on withthese folks.
So you know, this researcher inAlabama said, hey, I want to
put together a comprehensiverehabilitation program for these
folks with long COVID, becauseso far there's no evidence that
any drugs are particularlyhelpful.

(26:27):
So, hey, should we be doingsomething more directly with
brain training?
And so he recruited a number ofthese long COVID patients and
you know, half of them didnothing, which is currently what
we offer patients with longCOVID and the other half of them
did a combination of brain HQtraining and some intensive
adaptive coaching where theyreally got a lot of advice about
brain training and how to putwhat they were working on in the

(26:49):
brain training program to usein their real life.
And you know, and he just gotthis fantastic result so a small
pilot right, just 16 people.
But what did he see?
He saw these folks got betteron standard measures of speed in
terms of how fast their brainswere working, like we talked
about.
He saw that they got better onstandard functional measures
essentially, where cliniciansinterview them about their

(27:11):
everyday life and figure out,hey, how's your cognitive
function limiting what you cando in your life?
And they got dramaticallybetter at this
clinician-observed measure andthen, incredibly, 80% of the
folks who did the brain trainingand the coaching went back to
work.
And that's just a fantasticresult, because so many patients
with long COVID as a result ofthe fatigue, as a result of the
cognitive symptoms they feellike they just can't go back to

(27:32):
work and that limits people inso many ways.
So just the first tiny hint ofa study that says hey, you know
this idea that brain trainingcan help improve your brain
health.
Well, this has got maybe a lotof potential beyond just, for
example, normal cognitive aging.
And there have been study afterstudy in other related areas.
You know there's things likecancer-related cognitive

(27:54):
impairment or we think aboutchemo brain right, there's
HIV-related neurocognitivedisorder, where people have had
HIV have cognitive impairment.
You probably know that patientswith multiple sclerosis have
concentration and speed andworking memory problems.
You know that list actuallykind of goes on and on.
And it was really a surprise tome as a neuroscientist because
when I first started to lookinto this, you know

(28:16):
neuroscientists, they sometimessay, or these kinds of
clinicians, we're kind ofbutterfly collectors, right, we
want each of these conditions tobe different and figure out
how's chemo brain?
Just a little bit differentthan multiple sclerosis and so
forth.
But it actually turns out that,although there are a lot of bad
things that can happen to yourbrain, they all result in your
brain having this kind of noisyinformation processing, these

(28:38):
slow information processing andslow information processing.
And starting to look at thesame class of brain training
exercises where we're trying tospeed up brain information
processing and put thoseprinciples of brain plasticity
to work.
They're starting to look likethey're broadly helpful in a lot
of those areas because, youknow, study after study is
coming back pretty positive in alot of these very disparate
cognitive conditions.

(28:58):
And that's again excitingbecause you know, there aren't
drugs on the market, right, ifyou are a young woman and you
have breast cancer and you comeout and, hey, your cancer's in
remission, which is incrediblenews, right, but you're left
where you feel like, hey, myconcentration is bad and my fog
is bad and I can't go back towork and I can't play the role
of, you know, as a wife and amother in my family.
You know there's no drugs thatthe FDA has approved that are

(29:20):
helpful to you.
Right, you're just sort of leftin that status and hey, let's
cross our fingers and hope youget better.
But if where the science takesus is that, hey, doing the right
kind of brain trainingexercises, getting the right
kinds of brain health coachingthe kind of stuff that you folks
are doing at your clinic hey,if we can build healthier brains
with that kind of thing, hey,that's just an enormous number
of people that we can help.
And again, I think just thatright message of, hey, no one's

(29:43):
promising miracle cures here, ofcourse, but hey, there are real
world activities a person cando to improve their brain health
.
Well, there's just so, so manypeople that that has the
opportunity to touch.
So that's one exciting resultthat has come out recently, and
you know there's more stuffthat's coming.
You know, one thing that we'reworking on right now is that,
for the first time ever, theNational Institutes of Health

(30:04):
has allowed specific researchersto connect clinical trial data
to Medicare data, and so, forthe first time, people are able
to start to look at certaintrials with BrainHQ and not only
ask, hey, did that improvetheir cognitive function, which
you did in the course of thetrial?
But then to go into Medicaredata and say, well, hey, did
that reduce the risk of themhaving a fall or did it reduce

(30:25):
the risk of Alzheimer's inMedicare data?
So that data is going to startto come out over the course of
this year and next, I think.
And I think that's going to bereally exciting because it takes
the idea of brain training fromjust hey, I want to maintain a
healthy brain, improve cognitivefunction.
But now it becomes like apolicy level thing, like, hey,
if it turns out in Medicare datathat brain training reduces the
onset of Alzheimer's, well, hey, we should think about dementia

(30:48):
as a chronic preventabledisorder and we should probably
help people do easy, inexpensivethings that reduce their risk
of having this terrible chronicpreventable disorder.
And again, just what a changein mindset from well, my dad had
Alzheimer's, so I'll get itwhen I get it to hey, medicare
should probably figure out waysto help integrate this into the
health system so we could buildhealthier brains and lower our

(31:11):
risk of having this happen.
I mean, what an incrediblyexciting moment to be working in
this field.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
As you know, a lot of naysayers out there who claim
that these brain trainingprograms just don't translate to
the real world and maketangible improvements in daily
life of people.
So is there anything else youwould say to those folks to
convince the doubters?

Speaker 4 (31:30):
I mean it's a very old way of thinking, but you
know, old ways of thinking oftentake a long, long time to go
away.
I mean, if you look back to thephysics revolution in the 1920s
, when all those physicistsfigured out how, you know,
quantum mechanics worked, I meanthere were physicists who went
to their graves saying quantummechanics is not true.
So you know, you're not goingto change everyone's mind,

(31:50):
jeffrey Quint's mind, and youknow, hey, I get the concern
where people are coming from.
Right, you know you do certainthings.
You play a video game and youknow people get very good at
video games and it doesn't meanthey're any better at school.
So you know, I get theunderlying scientific concern.
But at this point, with 300published papers out there and
showing impacts on all kinds ofthings that are very different

(32:10):
from the exercises themselves, Ijust don't think that criticism
holds any scientific meritanymore.
You know a researcher, again atUniversity of Alabama,
birmingham, dr Carlene Ball.
One of the brain trainingexercises she invented, which is
now part of Brain HQ, calledspeed training.
I mean, you know she showed ina study that you know looked at
driving safety data from StateDepartment of Motor Vehicles

(32:33):
records for six years and foundthat folks who had done just 10
to 18 hours of that brain speedtraining to make their visual
system faster, more accurate,they had 48% fewer at-fault auto
crashes.
Right, and that comes fromspeed DMV records.
So I think we're just well pastthe idea that all you did was
get better at doing something ona computer screen.

(32:53):
So I'm always happy to havethat debate.
I've got 200 PowerPoint slidesto sort of lay out the argument.
By that I think we're done here.
And you know we're moving moreon to questions of hey, how
should this get integrated intothe health system, right?
You know Brain HQ is asupplemental health benefit and
a number of Medicare Advantageplans.
How can we make it so that whenyou go to your doctor, you know

(33:19):
when you go and you say, hey, Ihave a concern about my brain
slowing down, they can send youhome with a validated brain
training program, brain HQ oranyone, right, I'm happy to have
an evidence-based field and youknow, put it in your hands.
And hey, how can we have healthcoaches who can help you put it
to work?
Right?
So I think we're ready to start.
You know there's always morescience to be done.
I'm always excited about moreclinical trials, but when you
start to look at Medicare dataand show, hey, we're having an

(33:39):
impact on brain health andMedicare records, like we can
just move on from the conceptthat this is a video game and
you just get better at the videogame, it's just, that's just.
You know, we've had the debate,we won, let's move on and do
something easy.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
So, dr Monke, let me ask this what do you see as far
as applications for brain HQwith?
Does it produce structuralchanges in the brain?

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Yeah, and there have been a number of beautiful brain
imaging studies that have shownthat brain HQ is driving direct
changes in brain structure andbrain function, even brain
chemistry.
So one of the nicest set ofstudies was led out of the
University of Rochester by aprofessor, Dr Vanke Lin, and
what she did is she looked atfunctional magnetic resonance

(34:23):
imaging, fMRI and it turns outyou could put people in the
magnet and have them do nothing,right, you can just sort of
watch the brain while it's atrest and you can get a very
clear measure of, hey, how wellare different parts of the brain
connected to each other, right?
Are they kind of operating insync or are they operating kind
of in this disorganized, noisyway?
And she showed quitebeautifully that brain HQ
training brings more areas intothe brain into sync.

(34:45):
It improves what's calledfunctional connectivity as a
result of brain training.
Another beautiful study done outof George Mason in Washington
DC looked at direct thickeningof the insulation that surrounds
nerve fibers in the brain.
You know, you may know that ofcourse these nerve fibers carry
electricity.
They have an insulation aroundthem called myelin.
And what was shown in thatbrain imaging study was that

(35:06):
brain HQ training actuallyimproves the thickness of the
myelination in the brain.
So, literally, you know, notjust changing the wiring
structure but changing, hey, howwell is this insulated at the
very structural level of thebrain?
And you know we have beautifulstudies coming out over the
course of the summer that lookdirectly at changes in brain
chemistry.
Right, how are we affectingneuromodulatory systems in the

(35:27):
brain?
And so you know, that isextremely clear at this point.
And you know, again,no-transcript when it's asked to

(36:07):
do a memory task, and in thatsense it's the same way you
think of like physical exercise.
Right, when you do physicalexercise, you are improving the
strength and the biologicalhealth of your heart.
Right, by making it doing allthat pumping, it's a healthier
organ.
Now, Doing these brain HQexercises does exactly the same
thing in the brain.
By making the brain faster andmore accurate, the brain's

(36:27):
structure is improved, thechemistry is improved, the
function improves, and that'swhat gives you better cognitive
function and that's what keepsyou out of an auto crash,
because your brain itself ishealthier.
And I think that's really whatwe're learning here from this.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Does your success with dementia apply to just
Alzheimer's disease or does italso apply to other forms of
dementia, like vascular dementiaor Lewy body dementia or other
forms?

Speaker 4 (36:48):
of dementia?
It's a great question.
It's a great question.
The main study that came out onthis was an NIH-funded study
that came out in 2017.
And it was called the ACTIVEstudy, and they specifically had
about 2,800 older adults andthey followed them for 10 years,
which means they started off ashealthy older adults.
But, hey, a number of them wenton to those kinds of conditions
and what that study showed isthat brain HQ gave about a 29%

(37:13):
reduction in the risk of havingwhat they called Alzheimer's
disease or a related dementia.
And so in that study, they didnot, you know, pick apart hey,
was this vascular dementia?
Was this Lewy body dementia?
Was this Alzheimer's diseasedementia?
And they grouped them alltogether.
And the reason they did that is, although 2,800 people is a big
study, you know, from astatistical power perspective,

(37:34):
you would need 10 times as manypeople if you were going to
break that into vascular bodydementia or Lewy body dementia
and so forth and so on.
So we don't quite know yet.
Is it specifically better toprevent the onset of one kind of
dementia or another?
And maybe we'll find out asbigger studies come on.
But you know, that being said,as a scientist, you know those

(37:56):
are definitely differentpathological conditions, but
they also in a way representdistinct end stages of brain
health decline.
And if I had to put my guessright down right now, I'd say is
hey, if we can maintain ahealthier brain earlier on by
doing brain HQ training and allthe other kinds of things we can
do to maintain a healthy brain,I bet that's going to have a
broad effect on risk reductionfor all of these kinds of

(38:18):
dementia.
Because I think what happens isyou have an unhealthy brain and
then, hey, one of these kindsof dementia gets you before the
other one does.
But the fundamental underlyingissue is that your brain is not
in such a healthy state.
That's my guess about wherethat goes.
We'll see if we have theopportunity to do big studies to
tease that apart.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
We've hinted at this some in our discussion, but I'd
love to hear more of yourthoughts on potential clinical
applications for brain HQ,whether that be like people with
traumatic brain injury orotherwise.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah, I'm going to give you two parts of an answer
to that, which is hey, there's alot of common cognitive
complaints that come out of alot of very different clinical
conditions.
You know you mentionedtraumatic brain injury, for
example, or you mentioned PTSD.
You know we've talked aboutsome other things like chemo
brain, but I might throwdepression into that mix.
You know all of those are quitedifferent but there's kind of

(39:11):
an overlapping set of cognitiveissues that come out of that
that are centered around speedof processing and cognitive
slowing and attention andworking memory deficits.
And there are more and morestudies that come out with Brain
HQ showing that we can improvecertain aspects of cognition
across those disparateconditions.
And that's probably because,even though those conditions are
different, they drive the braininto that noisy information

(39:33):
processing status.
I actually had the privilege ofserving as the principal
investigator on a Department ofDefense-funded study a number of
years ago that specificallylooked at brain HQ training
versus video games in soldiersand vets coming back from the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars whohad cognitive symptoms.
These are people who hadtypically had substantial blast
exposures and then were comingback with all the cognitive

(39:54):
complaints that can happen afterpost-concussive symptom
disorder.
And you know, in that study wedemonstrated that brain HQ
improved cognitive functionquite dramatically compared to
just ordinary video games.
And then, even after peoplestopped doing the training,
their cognitive functionperformance, you know, sustained
those improvements, which kindof meant, hey, we had rewired
the brain in a lasting way.

(40:14):
And you know, that's my guessabout where this science is
going to take us.
And you can think about it thisway you know, physical exercise
helps a lot of differentailments, even if those ailments
are quite different.
Right, there's something reallyimportant about moving your
body and challenging it, and Ithink that's what we're going to
find out with brain training aswell.
Is that, you know, even inthese various different

(40:48):
conditions, you know,challenging your brain to make
it faster, more accurate, isgoing to help.
Is that over time, we'll bedeveloping more customized
programs?
Right, there's no doubt in mymind that, from a brain
plasticity perspective, you know, if you were to think about
PTSD, there are probably ways toapply.
Brain plastic has PTSD and hehears a loud bang and you know

(41:13):
that is such a huge stimulus forhis or her brain that it sends
it into this.
You know, ptsd condition.
There's probably ways to usebrain plasticity in an
intelligent way to I don't wantto quite say erase, but to make
it so when that triggeringstimulus comes in, it doesn't
drive the whole brain into thisterrible state.
Or similarly with depressionright, there's a cognitive

(41:59):
aspect to depression, butobviously there's a mood aspect
to depression and you knowthat's.
It's a mood disorder andthere's probably smart, a
condition of brain wiring.
That isn't quite right.
And if you believe, as thescience has shown us, that we
can rewire the brain, I thinkthe future is wide open for
building all kinds of clever,customized programs to rewire
the brain in a helpful direction, and that's just an incredible
realization to have that.
Hey, if brain health issues arebased on brain wiring and we
can rewire the brain, hey, let'sbuild a million programs and

(42:19):
test them and show that theywork.
But let's, you know, I thinkwe'll be able to customize them
over the next decades to come toreally just bring a new age to
how we think about monitoringand improving brain health right
.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
If we were to go back to the analogy of this is like
exercise for your brain, andwe've mentioned video games
several times and how sometimespeople might have the simplistic
idea of oh, it's just a videogame, but is this is a more
proper way of looking at thisexercise?
Like it's like cross trainingfor the brain, where you're
doing lots of different types ofexercises, where Sudoku or
crossword puzzles would just belike you're just running, like

(42:54):
you're just doing one type ofwork.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
I think that probably is a pretty good way to think
about it.
You know, the way I might buildon that is.
You know, often people do askme hey, you know I already do
crossword puzzles, aren't thosegood for my brain?
And you know I usually have togive them the bad news,
unfortunately, that hey, there'sa lot of studies that to
crossword puzzles and there'snot a lot to be said about that.
But why is that right?
What's going on?
And the reason is that thecentral problem that occurs

(43:18):
across all these conditionsaging or any of the other
conditions we talked about isit's about speed of processing,
it's about accuracy ofinformation systems.
And if you think about doing acrossword puzzle, you're not
really making your brain workfaster or more accurately, right
?
I mean, everyone sort of feelslike, well, hey, the gears are
turning right, the smoke'scoming out of my ears, but
honestly, you're just kind ofsitting there and you can take

(43:39):
as long as you like and thatdoesn't really drive this kind
of plastic change in the brain.
So if you like crosswordpuzzles, people should do things
they like.
I got nothing against that, butit's not going to improve the
speed and accuracy of braininformation processing.
In that sense it's not going tobuild a stronger, healthier
brain and in that sense it'sunlikely to improve cognitive
function.
If you look at these soldiersand vets coming back from the

(43:59):
war, the video game control wasa very strong control.
Right, you have to be fast andaccurate to play most video
games.
But the difference therebetween that and a proven brain
training program like Brain HQis that you know they're really
not adaptive in a helpful way.
I think a lot of people'sexperience with video games is
it's either too easy or too hard.
It's rarely just right.
And one of the central aspectsof Brain HQ is it's quite

(44:21):
adaptive, right, no matter whereyou start, it's going to get
easy enough so you can start it,and then it's going to push you
to get harder and harder in avery step-by-step way.
And I think it's, you know, themagic here, if I may put it
that way, is building that speedand accuracy training in this
really adaptive way, you know,with things you see and hear on
your computer that are designedto generalize to real world

(44:43):
performance, like you know,hearing in noisy environments or
driving on a road.
So that's really the differenceis, hey, your brain can always
do something, but only certainthings, rewire your brain in a
helpful way.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
I've actually been personally using the program for
a bit and I find it actuallypretty engaging and entertaining
.
I started using it on myMacBook, but I also noticed
there's an app you can get onyour iPhone or your iPad, which
is kind of cool.
Please simply describe atypical training session for us.
What's it like, how long doesit last and how often does one
need to do it?

Speaker 4 (45:16):
A great question.
So, first of all, hey, anyonewho's curious about this, you
can just go to wwwbrainhqcom.
You can register for free.
It'll give you one exercise perday to try out, and you can
just say hey, this seems likesomething that's interesting or
helpful for me, for me.
So what's it like to do this?
Well, this isn't like taking aclass, right.
We're not teaching youinformation like Paris is the

(45:37):
capital of France, right?
And we're not giving youstrategies like, hey, when you
meet someone you know, rhymetheir name with your favorite
fruit or whatever that'll helpyou remember their name.
Right, you know, you're going tobe seeing and hearing things
from your computer that aredesigned to make your brain
faster and more accurate.
So what's one of them?
Well, here's one of theexercises that was shown to
improve driving safety.
Right, you're looking at yourcomputer screen and in the

(46:02):
center of your screen, when youlook, there's going to be a
single image, a small car or atruck, right.
And hey, they're prettydifferent.
If you stare at them longenough, it's quite obvious which
one is which.
But at the same time you'redoing that in the center of your
vision, you have to use yourperipheral vision to notice
where is there a road sign?
Is it the one o'clock positionor the three o'clock or the six
o'clock position?
So again, if I just put this onthe screen and gave you a
minute to look at it, you'd belike well, this is easy, henry,

(46:22):
there's a car in the center andthe road sign is over there at
six o'clock.
Well, great, if you can do itthat, well, let's make a second,
let's put it up there for halfa second, let's put it up there
for a tenth of a second andeventually what happens is your
brain can't do it anymore.
Right, it happens too fast,your brain cannot keep up with
it.
Well, as soon as that happens.
Well, let's make it a littleeasier now.
Let's slow it on down so youcan get it right, and soon we

(46:45):
find your threshold, we find thelevel at which you're getting
maybe 80% of the right, butyou're always getting a few
wrong.
That is the magic zone forbrain plasticity, where it's
challenging enough that yourbrain needs to rewire itself to
do the task, but it's not sohard that you just can't get any
of it right and your braingives up in frustration.
So you know, that's the kind ofthing you're going to be doing

(47:06):
in these brain trainingexercises Things like that where
you're asked to processinformation more quickly or hear
things more quickly or tell thedifference between things that
you're seeing or hearing morequickly.
And there's dozens of exercisesin Brain HQ and they target, you
know, attention and speed andmemory and navigation and even
social cognition, likerecognizing names and faces, and

(47:28):
as well as you know, workingmemory and decision making.
But at their core, all of themare kind of targeting different
regions of the brain with thesame basic science, which is,
hey, let's help that be a partof the brain, be more faster and
more accurate.
And then when you sit down fora session, you know there's
dozens of exercises, but you donot have to be a PhD in
neuroscience, you don't have topick them yourself.
There's a very smart, built-insoftware-based personal trainer

(47:50):
that looks at everything you'vedone and constantly picks the
right exercises for you andintroduces a new exercise when
you're ready or brings back anolder exercise when it thinks
you need some more practice.
So most people's experience iskind of like, well, I sit down
and I ask the personal trainerwhat I should do today and it
gives me some training.
And yes, how much training isdone.
You know most of these studieshave done training that's, you

(48:11):
know, as little as two hours aweek, which you know you can do
in two one-hour sessions, whichis a lot.
But a lot of people, just youknow, break that up.
Hey, I'm just going to do acouple minutes a day and you
know, kind of get my almost likegetting your steps in right,
I'm going to do 15 minutes a dayand I'll do it five days a week
or five or six days a week andkind of get in my brain training
, so it that kind of works foryou and your schedule and then

(48:32):
you don't have to do it forever.
You know most of these studieshave looked at two months, three
months, four months of braintraining and seen nice
improvements.
And we certainly see people onBrain HQ who start every day and
they do it every day for years.
It's quite remarkable when Ilook at their training records.
But hey, we also see people whotrain for a few months and then
they take a break for a fewmonths because they got other
stuff going on and then theycome back and they train some

(48:53):
more.
And I think that's one of thegreat things about brain
training.
You've built a healthier brain.
You should keep at it ingeneral, but you can take long
breaks and come back and boostyour brain health up Now.
I never want anyone to think Ishouldn't do this.
Because I do, I have to do itevery day.
Because I'm not going to do itevery day, and I get that.
You're not going to do it everyday and that's completely fine.
The science shows us you don'thave to.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Looking ahead, Dr Monco, what is your vision for
the future of brain training andhow do you see Brain HQ
continuing to evolve to meetjust the emerging scientific
understanding and user needs,but then also just the whole
entrance of AI and how?
That's also a revolution AI andhow.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
That's also a revolution.
Yeah, you know, my vision forthe future is that, you know,
all of us have a tool in ourhands or in our pocket if it's
our phone that allows us tocontinually, you know, track and
check in on our brain healthand our cognitive performance
and then do something about ourbrain health and our cognitive
performance that's beenscientifically validated to help

(49:53):
us.
And, hey, some of us want tobuild faster, better brains
because we weren't trying to getmore out of life.
Some of us want to maintain ourbrain health as we get old, so
we keep doing that.
But, you know, my vision of thefuture is we all have those
evidence-based tools that areeasy to use, that are fun to use
, engaging to use, that areproven in science to work so
that, hey, we can maintain, wecan build better brains and we

(50:14):
can enjoy life in the same waythat we can build healthier
bodies and enjoy life.
So that's the vision that Iwant.
The vision I want is that, hey,as we get old, we don't just
sit on our couch and watch old ILove Lucy reruns right, we all
have an active brain healthprogram that we're doing because
we want to do all the thingsthat we wanted to do as we got
older and hang out with ourfamilies and our kids.
You know, the future that Iwant is when, hey, when we're

(50:37):
looking at young kids who aremaybe come from difficult
backgrounds or trying to figureout hey, what am I good at that?
Those young kids have thesekinds of tools so that they can
build strong brains and go andsucceed in all the ways that
they can.
You know, the future that I wantis when we find a person who's
got a diagnosed mental illness.
You know, instead of just, youknow, locking them away or just
giving them drugs, that you know, in addition to giving them

(50:59):
drugs because the drugs arehelpful, that we're giving them
some validated brain healthprograms because, you know,
mental illnesses have a base inbrain health and we can figure
out how to fix them.
I want where we're taking allof this basic science around
brain plasticity and we'regiving everyone the ways to
check on their brain health andbuild their brain health so that
they can live the kind of lifethey want to live.
And you know what?

(51:20):
We're getting closer to thatvision every day.
You know, when we started thiscompany, it was kind of a pipe
dream, but we are really gettingcloser and closer to that every
day and we're going to lookback on this podcast when you
and your listeners listen to ityou know someone's going to be
listening to this five years, 10years, 20 years from now are
going to think oh my God, thatwas the dark ages.
We used to just let people getold and we didn't give them a
brain health program.
We had soldiers who came backfrom the war and we told them

(51:42):
just go back to school, you'reready for it.
We didn't take care of peoplein prison who have psychiatric
disorders with brain healthprograms.
So that's what I want.
I want us to be looking back tothis time and thinking well,
here's where we started to comeout of the cave and into the
light and recognize how we canhelp all the people that we can
help have builder-breder brains.
That's what I want.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
For real.
Well, as we're kind of wrappingthings up, is there a personal
story of a user or a studyparticipant that comes to mind
whose cognitive improvementreally deeply moved you?

Speaker 4 (52:13):
Oh, there are so many .
One of the great things aboutworking here at Brain HQ is
people email you theseremarkable studies, these
stories.
You know I have people whoemailed us and say, hey, you
know, you saved my life lastnight.
You know, I was out driving andit was kind of in the dusk and
I came up to a stop sign at anintersection and I was about to
go through and then out of thecorner of my eye, you know, I
saw that there was another carthat was coming through that

(52:34):
intersection and I stopped rightbefore I went into it and they
just blazed on through and theywould have T-boned me if you had
, you know.
And the reason I saw that isbecause, hey, I did these visual
training exercises and I cansee out of the corner of my eye.
We spoke with a woman who ispart of a health plan that
offered her brain HQ and she'dhad a stroke before she started
to use brain HQ and then she wasgoing swimming in the pool

(52:56):
every day in order to build backher strength after her stroke
and she did a lot of brain HQ.
She found it very helpful to her.
Then she said one day at thepool, you know, I slipped right,
my foot just went right outfrom underneath me and she said
I can see it all unfold in frontof my eyes.
Right, I was going to fall, Iwas going to crack my head again
, it was going to double down onmy brain injury.
And she said at the last second, I just reached out and I

(53:17):
grabbed that safety rail.
And I grabbed it and I held onand I didn't fall.
And she wrote us and she's likethe only reason I was that fast
is because I've been doingthese brain HQ speed exercises
and that kept me on my feet andkept me out of the hospital that
day.
And so you know, you get storyafter story after story like
that.
You're like you know what it'sgood to come up and come to work
.
Right, we're helping people,we're bringing the science

(53:38):
forward and it's really reallyvery motivating, really very
motivating.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Well, that about does it for our discussion on brain
training with Brain HQ.
Thank you so much, Dr Manka,for joining us and sharing your
vast knowledge and passion forimproving brain health and for
the use of Brain HQ.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
No, thank you and again, I just encourage any
listener who hears this and iscurious to give us a try to come
by and visit us atwwwbrainhqcom.
Again, sign up, get the freeexercises, see if this is
something for you.
We are here to spread the brainhealth revolution and you can
be part of it by joining us.
So thank you and thanks forhaving me on.
It's a delight to chat with.
Both of you Know so much aboutbrain health and just very fun,
very science-based and a greatconversation.
Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
And thank you so much for listening.
We hope that we were able toshare something with you that
was interesting and helpful.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
And please do take a moment to rate us on iTunes.
These reviews really do make adifference for us.
And also, if you like thepodcast, then take a moment
today to let a friend know aboutus and help spread the word on
evidence-based, holistic,functional and integrated
medicine.
And if you want to reach out tome to comment on the show or to
make recommendations for futuretopics, then you may do so at
drmcminn at yahoocom.

(54:49):
This is Dr McMinn signing outand this is Coach Lindsay.
Take care and be well.