AI and Big Data allow innovators to leverage neuroscientific knowledge at scale to untapped markets. We would all like our brains to be more powerful – especially those of us with reason to fear the effects of advancing age or a degenerative illness. For the entrepreneurs behind widely promoted "brain-training" apps like Lumosity, the universal desire for cognitive improvement translates to lucrative opportunities. Some scientists and clinicians, too, have hopped on the bandwagon, seeking avenues to lend their expertise to the business world while theoretically bringing cognitive enhancement to the masses. It seems like a win-win for all – except, in Lumosity's case, results have fallen short of the formidable hype.

A sheen is starting to appear on Rocky Blumhagen's forehead, just below his gray hair. He's marching in place in a starkly lit room decked out with two large flatscreens. On both of the TVs, a volcano lets off steam through wide cracks glowing with lava, their roar muffling the Andean percussion and flutes on the soundtrack. Rocky reaches out his left hand, as if to grasp a coin from midair, and one of them disappears with a brrring. "I don't know if I can do it," he says to a guy named Josh sitting nearby in a felt-covered lounge chair. He looks up from his iPad, watching Rocky, age 66, grab, jog, kick, and reach his way through the videogame. "Keep it up," Josh says as the heart monitor in the corner of the screen reads 129.

Video games are pretty fun, but most of us don't expect much more than that from entertainment media. But what if a fun video game also, conveniently, helped you succeed more in school and in life? But just as quickly as they've hit the virtual shelves of iTunes and the like, the validity of their claims has been called into question. A new study out this week in the Journal of Neuroscience found that one popular app, Lumosity, doesn't do anything for your brain--other than helping you get better at playing the game itself. While one study on a single app can't be used to make any sweeping conclusions on the benefits (or lack thereof) of brain training games as a whole, it does highlight an important point: It's difficult not only to create the right type of brain training exercise for a specific behavior or condition, but also to figure out if that training actually works.

Brain training apps such as Lumosity and Elevate are supposedly useful in order to keep your cognitive skills sharp, but there's been quite a bit of doubt cast on whether they are actually useful. Now, scientists led by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Joseph Kable are chiming in. As published in The Journal of Neuroscience, the team "found no evidence that cognitive training influences neural activity during decision-making, nor did we find effects of cognitive training on measures of delay discounting or risk sensitivity." The team's interest in the issue was in regard to instant gratification. Specifically, they wanted to see whether cognitive training could change behavior, leading users to prefer delayed or less risky rewards.

There has been a rise in commercial brain-training programs in the last few years, with games such as the ones from Lumosity, which claim to tap cognitive functions such as attention, memory and cognitive flexibility gaining prominence. However, a new study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and published in the July 10 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, suggests these training games or commercial brain-training programs do not boost people's neural activity and overall thinking abilities to make them think "smarter." Researchers analyzed brain functioning among 128 young adults between the age group of 18 to 35 years, who were given brain-training or made to play video games and Lumosity games five times a week for 10 weeks. The study found that the ones who played Lumosity games had not become better in terms of cognitive performance or standard tests of memory and attention as compared to players of computer video games. Researchers found that the individuals who played Lumosity games also did not show any differences or betterment in brain activity during decision-making tasks as compared to the ones who played video games.

Are brain-training games any better at improving your ability to think, remember and focus than regular computer games? Possibly not, if the latest study is anything to go by. Joseph Kable at the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues have tested the popular Luminosity brain-training program from Lumos Labs in San Francisco, California, against other computer games and found no evidence that it is any better at improving your thinking skills. Brain-training is a booming market. It's based on the premise that our brains change in response to learning challenges.

This article was written together with Ellen M. Martin and Melinda Speckmann. Games have been part of human culture for millennia. It is no surprise that elements of play can be powerful digital tools to grab our attention and keep us on a path to taking care of ourselves and others. Big data is already behind brain games. The use of big data is becoming increasingly mainstream in health play applications.

Everything you do changes your brain. Right now, wherever you are, looking at these words is shaping and modifying the connections between neurons inside your head. It seems like a scary thought, but this process – known as neuroplasticity – is fundamental to our ability to learn new skills, keep hold of old ones, and form new memories. Imagine, then, if we could take control of that process. If we could target specific types of skills and cognitive processes, then we could teach our brains to be better at, well, anything.