From Rat Brains to Better Human Performance

SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2017 -- Posit Science co-founder Jeff Zimman will talk for the first time about the “secret” involvement of his company’s brain training program, BrainHQ, in the training routine of Patriots’ Quarterback Tom Brady over the past three seasons – in which, Brady led the Patriots to three AFC Championship games and two Super Bowl wins.

Zimman will give a featured talk at the Boomer Business Summit in Chicago on Thursday afternoon, in connection with the annual meeting of the American Society on Aging.  His talk, entitled “Winning,” will trace how basic research into rat brains led scientists to a deeper understanding of the reversible mechanisms that determine how the brain changes with aging.

“What became clear from basic animal research is the wide-ranging and positive impact that training speed and accuracy has on the chemical, structural and functional performance of the brain across dozens of measures,” Zimman observed. “It wasn’t just that speed and accuracy at a task improved – for example, in the rat studies, basic measures of brain health improved across physical measures of neuronal integrity, wiring, and insulation.”

This type of plasticity-based training in speed and accuracy is at the foundation of much of the training in the BrainHQ platform, so it also has been tested extensively in humans.  In fact the exercises and assessment on the BrainHQ platform have been shown to deliver benefits in more than 140 peer-reviewed papers across a wide variety of populations. 

A large number of those studies have been in older adults, including randomized trials that have shown improvement in standard measures of cognition (e.g., attention, processing speed and memory), in standard measures of quality of life (e.g., mood, confidence and functional independence) and in real world activities (e.g., balance, gait and driving).

Zimman first heard from Tom Brady that he was seeing results on and off the field, three years ago. BrainHQ, with its emphasis on speed and accuracy, soon became embedded in the TB12 Method taught at Brady’s TB12 Sports Therapy Center in Foxboro, Massachusetts; however, if you were not among the elite athletes who trained there, it remained a secret. 

Recently, TB12 launched the TB12 Store, making the BrainHQ program used at TB12 available online. And, just before the Super Bowl, Brady talked about the importance of BrainHQ to his training regimen in response to questions from reporters.

“Tom’s performance reminds us just how important conditioning and resilience is, not just in sport, but in life,” Zimman added. He noted that the TB12 Method is revolutionary in the world of sports training because of its emphasis on pliability and resilience. Zimman’s talk focused on how this emphasis also can play a critical role in success in business and in life.

“Tom’s success with BrainHQ, and that of other peak performers, underscores how far this science can extend,” Zimman said. “Being faster and more accurate clearly can make a big difference in football – where split seconds and inches can be the difference between winning and losing – but it’s hard to think of any job or undertaking where it would not make a difference.”

You can start BrainHQ for free online at www.brainhq.com or as free app for the iPhone or iPad through the Apple App Store. The annual general access subscription costs $96 per year ($8 per month) or $14 for a month-to-month subscription. General access subscriptions also are available for free through a growing number of public libraries. You can subscribe to the same version of BrainHQ used at TB12 at www.tb12.brainhq.com.

For more information, contact [email protected]