Scientists have identified a new weapon against age-related decline in the human brain, and it's not a drug—it's a high-speed video game called NeuroRacer. Described in a study released in the journal Nature this week, the game is just one of five ways that modern video games may surprise you.

NeuroRacer was painstakingly designed to train cognitive functions that decline with age, such as short-term memory, attention, and the ability to deal with distractions, explained co-creator Adam Gazzaley, who studies cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco.

Older adults (60 to 85 years) who played the multitasking game 12 hours a month not only outperformed their peers, they also bested untrained 20-year-olds. Their cognitive gains suggest that the