Brain Fitness Training & Tourettes Treatment

brain fitness Tim Howard Tourette syndrome

Goalkeeper Tim Howard, a Tourette Sufferer

Brain fitness researchers Professor Stephen Jackson and Professor Georgina Jackson from the University of Nottingham have shown evidence, using brain imaging and behavioral techniques to study a group of children with Tourettes compared to a control group, that brain fitness training may be useful to help treat children with Tourette syndrome.

“We had previously shown, somewhat paradoxically, that children with Tourette syndrome have greater control over their motor behaviour than typically-developing children of a similar age,” said Stephen Jackson, brain fitness expert and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the School of Psychology, “And we had speculated that this was due to compensatory changes in the brain that helped these children control their tics.

“This new study provides compelling evidence that this enhanced control of motor output is accompanied by structural and functional alterations within the brain. This finding suggests that non-pharmacological, ‘brain-training’, approaches may prove to be an effective treatment for Tourette syndrome.”

An inherited neurological condition affecting about one child in every hundred Tourette syndrome is associated with involuntary sounds and movements such as coughing, grunting, eye blinking and repeating of words. First showing itself at age six or seven, Tourette symptoms increase until age twelve and can continue into adulthood.

This brain fitness study is the latest in a long line of similar studies that demonstrate the brain’s ability to change and adapt when we train it.

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