The Science Behind BrainSharp 50+
What the BrainSharp Score actually measures, how we built it, and — just as important — what we don't claim.
What BrainSharp Trains
Cognition is not a single trait — it's a constellation of distinct abilities. BrainSharp's exercises are organized around six cognitive domains that are widely studied in cognitive research. (Elsewhere in the app we call these "brain regions" as a friendly shorthand — they are cognitive domains, not literal anatomical areas of the brain, and BrainSharp does not image or measure neuroanatomy.) Each lesson is a cognitive-training task designed to exercise one or more of these domains under time pressure, the way many everyday activities do.
Memory Recall
Holding, encoding, and retrieving sequences, names, lists, and source information.
Processing Speed
How quickly you take in new information and produce a correct response.
Attention & Focus
Sustaining concentration, filtering distractors, switching between tasks under load.
Reasoning & Logic
Following multi-step chains of reasoning, spotting patterns, evaluating arguments.
Word Retrieval
Producing the right word at the right time — fluency, vocabulary, lexical access speed.
Spatial Processing
Mentally rotating, navigating, and reading space — maps, rooms, routes, distances.
These six domains were chosen because they map to everyday activities that matter to adults 50+: managing money, recognizing scams, driving, following instructions, and holding a conversation that crosses topics. The exercises are designed as engaging practice in these areas; they are educational and recreational, not a clinical program.
How the BrainSharp Score Is Computed
Every answer in every lesson produces three signals: accuracy (did you get it right), response time (how fast), and domain weights (which cognitive domains were actually loaded). We blend them into a per-domain score — what the app labels a "region" score — on a 0–100 scale. (These are cognitive domains, not anatomical brain regions.)
Per-question score
For a single question the blended score follows the same shape across every lesson:
where rtScore = max(0, 100 − max(0, rt − floor) / k)
Accuracy weight (wa) is typically 0.75–0.80 and response-time weight (wrt) is 0.20–0.25, with per-lesson tuning. The response-time penalty has a generous floor (3–5 seconds) so a careful reader is not punished, but a 30-second answer scores lower than a 5-second one.
Per-region score
A single lesson may train two regions at once (e.g. Analogical Reasoning loads both reasoning and word retrieval). We project the blended question score into each region using that question's region weights, then average across questions:
Trend over time
Your dashboard shows a rolling region score using your most recent sessions, weighted equally across lessons (no single lesson can dominate). Lesson history and session history are both tracked, so the score recovers smoothly if you skip a day. A bad question doesn't tank your score; a long streak of weak performance moves it.
What BrainSharp Does — and Does Not — Claim
| What we claim | What we don't claim |
|---|---|
| YES. The exercises are cognitive-training tasks built on the same task formats commonly used in cognitive research. | NO. BrainSharp does not detect, diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure Alzheimer's disease, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, cognitive decline, or any other medical condition. |
| YES. As a general matter of learning, practicing a task tends to improve performance on that same task (the "practice effect"). | NO. The BrainSharp Score is not a clinical assessment and is not equivalent to neuropsychological or medical testing. |
| YES. Your dashboard tracks how your in-app scores change as you practice over time. | NO. We do not promise specific cognitive improvements, and we do not claim transfer to untrained real-world tasks. Individual results vary, and broader "smarter brain" benefits are not well supported by the research (Simons et al., 2016). |
| YES. Several lessons (scam detection, financial reasoning, health literacy, driving-hazard exercises) are themed around everyday situations many adults care about. | NO. Brain Age and percentile estimates are in-app training metrics, not biological age or any clinical measurement. |