by Brian Ashcraft

Ryuta Kawashima knows gray matter. The famed neuroscientist discovered that parts of the human brain are stimulated when focusing on a single taste, but light up like a Christmas tree when answering a succession of problems. The Tohoku University professor published and lectured extensively on the topic, stating previously that video games damage the human brain.

"There is a problem we will have with a new generation of children — who play computer games — that we have never seen before," Prof. Kawashima told The Observer back in 2001. These problems include increasingly violent individuals with underpowered intellects.

Game-hater or not, Nintendo roped the eminent professor in to help create a series of "brain games." These were to be anything but traditional video games. Designed to exercise the noggin and not thumbs, the titles included a series of math, reading and writing exercises. Suddenly gaming got "smart" as the brain games went supernova, selling 5 million to date and propelling the portable into the hands of non-gamers.

On April 17th, Nintendo is releasing a localized version of Noh o Kitaeru Otona no DS Training called Brain Age. Another, called Big Brain Academy, hits the U.S. late next month. In a special interview, we talked with the Professor via email about the game, the expected success of brain games and his now famous pixelized face.

Q). How would you explain the concept of mental age to someone who's never heard of it?

A). The mental age is calculated from expected average cognitive functions of specific age of people. For example, if you perform a cohort study of memory function of healthy people, you would find age-related decline of memory function due to normal aging. Also, you could calculate regression line between age and scores of memory function tests that enable you to calculate expected average memory function of specific age of subjects. Then when you refer that regression data, you could know your memory function, that is, your test score, is the same level as average people of some specific age. This is the mental age calculated from memory tests. We combined results of several cognitive tests to calculate the mental age in DS games.

Q). What exactly is happening when people are playing the brain games? (What parts of the brain are being used?)

A). We have used near infra-red spectroscopy during developing these games. And we confirmed that the prefrontal cortex of the bilateral hemispheres is strongly activated during playing each game.

Q). What is it like to see the brain training series take off so much? Did you expect the series to become this popular?

A). Beyond success of these DS games, I have published two brain training books, both of which have sold more than a million. So I know brain training is social trend in Japan. Therefore, shall I say, it's not too incredible.

Q). What sort of concrete improvements can people expect to experience if they exercise mentally with the brain training games?

A). We expect improvements of memory functions, extroversion, and positiveness. It is important to note here that we think DS games are not only for brain training, but also for a tool for communication with family and friends. Four people can play using one software. Basic content of games is so simple that these are games that can be played with children, adults and aged peoples, and the results of games can be compared with all members. We already see many families have started communicating more with DS games in Japan.

Q). Have you seen people playing the DS games in public (on the train, for example)? How did it make you feel?

A). Yes I did, and I felt very bad. Because I know a 3D polygon of my face appears often in the games, and I thought that people may recognize me as the guy in the games.

Q). What do you think about the DS games coming to the US and Europe?

A). It is very interesting to see whether DS games would succeed outside of Japan, since there are too many cultural differences.

Q). Does the Japanese version exercise different parts of the brain from the English language one? Or does it do the same thing?

A). It does the same.

Q). What do you think of the English version? What do you like best about the localization?

A). Well ... I must say excellent, and I love all!

*edited for clarity

Send an email to the author of this post at bashcraft@kotaku.com.