A 10p pencil is just as good as a £100 Nintendo at stimulating the memory, according to a study that dismisses the DS Lite's claims to boost the brain.

The survey of ten-year-old children found no evidence to support claims in Nintendo's advertising campaign, featuring Nicole Kidman, that users can test and rejuvenate their grey cells. “The Nintendo DS is a technological jewel. As a game it's fine,” said Alain Lieury, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Rennes, Brittany, who conducted the survey. “But it is charlatanism to claim that it is a scientific test.”

Nintendo claims its “edutainment” programmes, such as Big Brain Academy and Brain Training, can improve blood flow to the brain and thereby improve “practical intelligence”.

The company suggests that its programmes can make users “two to three times better in tests of memory.” It claims to assess capacity by measuring “brain age” and says that older people can keep their minds young by using the console. Nearly 90 million DS units have been sold worldwide.

“The more you use the brain in a challenging way, the better it can work,” the Japanese neuroscientist Ryuta Kawashima, who developed Brain Training, says on the Nintendo website. “We know that the mental processes of our brain start to weaken if we only use it in our routine daily life.”

Professor Lieury said that helping one's children with their homework, reading, playing Scrabble or Su Doku or watching documentaries instead of soap operas matched or beat the console. The study tested Nintendo's claims on 67 ten-year-olds. “That's the age where you have the best chance of improvement,” Professor Lieury said. “If it doesn't work on children, it won't work on adults.”

The children were split into four groups. The first two did a seven-week memory course on a Nintendo DS, the third did puzzles with pencils and paper, and the fourth just went to school as normal.

Before and after the programmes, the children were set a variety of tasks - logic tests, memorising words on a map, doing sums and interpreting symbols. Researchers found that children using the Nintendo DS system failed to show any significant improvement in memory tests. They did do 19 per cent better in mathematics - but so did the pencil-and-paper group, while the fourth group did 18 per cent better. When it came to memorising, the pencil-and-paper group recorded a 33 per cent improvement, while the Nintendo children were 17 per cent worse. In logic tests the Nintendo children registered a 10 per cent improvement, as did the pencil-and-paper group. The children who had no specific training improved 20 per cent.

In Stimulate Your Neurones, a book due out this month, Professor Lieury says: “There were few positive effects and they were weak. Dr Kawashima is one of a long list of dream merchants.”

Brain-training exercises

1) Simple maths Can you do all these sums in less than 20 seconds?

4x7=, 4+1=, 10-2=, 4+2=, 5x8=, 4+2=, 6+0=, 8x8=, 0x3=, 11-5=, 6x8=, 10-7=, 6-5=, 6+0=, 1+6=, 6-2=, 17-8=, 2x7=, 8-8=, 9x8=

2) Count the syllables How many syllables are in each of these phrases?

A fool and his money are soon parted

Speak softly and carry a big stick

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

3) Memory test Take two minutes to memorise these words. How many can you write down in two minutes?

race pick into oboe dive

riot plod swap user shoe

rage noun exam nova stop

pony kick unit pawn knee

dawn pelt vice calf join

beak time aged vale amok