The 411 on Big Brain Video Games From Nintendo!

We give you the 411 on powering-up your brain with Nintendo's brain games!

Courtesy of Nintendo

There's a great big lump of gray stuff between your ears and Nintendo wants to power it up. No, not the oatmeal you stuck up your nose - your brain! It's three pounds of squiggly-looking, slimy stuff and without it you'd spend a lot of the time getting outsmarted by your dog. Nintendo's new brain-training games, Brain Age and Big Brain Academy are designed to exercise your brain and turn it from flabby to fit, here's the 411 on how they work.

Video Game Brain Stimulation 101

Your brain controls everything from your breathing to your nose-picking and if you stimulate part of your brain, it gets stronger. For instance, doctors who play video games before surgery get a boost to their hand-eye coordination! So, brain stimulation is the key to increasing your brain power and that's what Nintendo's brain games do.

Brain Age - Daily Gaming For a Healthier Brain!

Nintendo teamed up with Japanese neuroscientist, Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, to create the Brain Age game. They packed it with Sudoku and other fun mini-games that stimulate your prefrontal cortex - the part of your brain that handles creativity, memory, communication and self-control. Playing a little bit of Brain Age each day warms up your brain, keeps it healthy as you get older and gets it ready to kick some mental butt. Plus, a 3D Ryuta Kawashima head will chat with you as you play and he's one funny dude.

Beef Up Your Brain at the Big Brain Academy

A healthy human brain weighs 1400 grams, but if you're a slacker you could only be using half of that! The Big Brain Academy breaks your brainpower down into five categories - Analyze, Compute, Identify, Memorize and Think. It then gives you fun mini-games that exercise each part of your brain so you can improve areas where your mental muscle is weak. With exercise, your brain gets massive, and you can compete against your friends to see who has the heaviest brain!

Powering Up Your Brain With Nintendo

Basically the new Brain Age and Big Brain Academy games are fun ways to get your brain movin' and shakin' without it being as boring as dry toast. These are fast, fun games for the Nintendo DS that are super-easy to convince your 'rents to buy for you!

Brain Game Parental Alert! Kathy Buckworth Speaks

Nintendo's Brain Games are such a fun way to keep your brain in shape that Kathy Buckworth, award-winning author of "The Secret Life of Supermom - How the Woman Who Does it All, Does It", other SuperMom books and dozens of other parenting articles, had a chat with Gary. Her kids are all over these games, especially the Big Brain Academy, and she calls it a great way to challenge kids to think and keep using their brains during the summer. A quick game before school to get their brains started by challenging their high scores, or as a fun way to spend travel time (It sure beats "Are we there yet!...") or as something to do for 10 minutes while you're waiting for something. If you can go outside and get your sports on, go for it and put the Brain Games down, but they're great replacements for time you'd spend staring at the TV, or playing other video games. They're also easy enough that really young kids can play them, even Kathy's four year-old has game! For more info on Kathy, check out her website at: www.kathybuckworth.com