Cambridge Brain Sciences Is Now Creyos: History and What Changed

Cambridge Brain Sciences is now Creyos. The company announced the new name in a blog post dated November 2, 2022, explaining that the change reflected a shift from serving academic researchers to serving healthcare providers. The cognitive tasks themselves come from the same line of research, and some kept their names while others were renamed. If you remember taking “the Cambridge brain test” online years ago, or your clinician has just sent you a Creyos link, this page explains how the two connect, what happened to the free public version, and what the rename does and doesn’t mean for you.

Same company, new name

Creyos describes itself as a web-based platform that pairs digitized cognitive tasks with standard health questionnaires for clinicians (the Creyos cognitive assessment guide covers how it works in detail). What matters here is continuity: the business behind it was, and legally still is, the same organization. Its FDA registration lists the company as “Cambridge Brain Sciences Inc. (o/a Creyos)”, where “o/a” means “operating as”. The headquarters is in Toronto, Canada.

According to the rebrand post, the name blends the ideas of “credibility” and “ethos.” The post says the name change came first, and a redesigned interface and further platform updates followed. So if a screen looks different from what you remember, that is the redesign, not a different test.

Where the tasks came from: the Owen and Hampshire research

The tasks grew out of the work of Adrian Owen, a cognitive neuroscientist who did research in Cambridge, England, and later moved to Western University in Canada. Creyos lists him as its Chief Scientific Officer and says he originated the digitized tasks. That is where the “Cambridge” in the old name came from.

Two papers from that group explain a lot about the platform:

• Hampshire, Highfield, Parkin and Owen, 2012 (Neuron). Titled “Fractionating human intelligence,” it argued that intelligence is not one single ability but several components, such as memory, reasoning and verbal ability, each linked to distinct brain networks. Creyos says more than 44,000 people took part, and that this data became the starting point for its normative database.
• Owen and colleagues, 2010 (Nature). Viewers of a BBC science program were invited to “brain train” online for six weeks. 11,430 people were included in the analysis. They improved on the tasks they practiced but showed no transfer to untrained tasks. We cover this study, and what came after it, in Does brain training work?

The 2012 study focused on ages 12 to 70. Creyos says data were added later so that scores are now age-normed from age 6, and its current comparison group is more than 85,000 people. Those people volunteered online and were not screened for health conditions, which is one reason a score is a comparison, not a verdict. Our page on how accurate Creyos is looks at the strengths and limits of that evidence.

Why the founding dates don’t match

If you look up when the company started, you may find three different years, all from Creyos itself:

These don’t really contradict each other. They describe different milestones: a public research website, then a company, then a clinical product. The simplest accurate summary is that Creyos was originally launched as Cambridge Brain Sciences and renamed in 2022.

What happened to the free Cambridge Brain Sciences tests?

For years, anyone could visit the Cambridge Brain Sciences website and try the tasks, and many people did, which is how the research studies reached such large numbers. That public version is gone. Typing cambridgebrainsciences.com now lands you on creyos.com, and Creyos does not offer a consumer self-test. A patient takes Creyos only through a clinician, either from a link the clinician sends or in the clinic.

A few related changes you may notice:

• AARP Staying Sharp. Creyos’s timeline says AARP chose Cambridge Brain Sciences in 2020 to deliver its Staying Sharp program. If you used the tasks through AARP, that was a partnership, not a clinical assessment.
• Old logins. People searching for a “Cambridge Brain Sciences login” are often looking for the old public site. Patients now start from the link their clinician sends. Some Creyos help pages still sit on a web address with the old Cambridge Brain Sciences name.
• Old task names. Older research papers use names such as Monkey Ladder, which is the former name of the task now called Number Ladder.

If what you want is a quick way to check your own thinking at home, our guide to free online cognitive tests explains what the remaining public options can and can’t tell you.

Creyos Health and Creyos Research

The company now runs two products. Creyos Health is the clinical version used by healthcare providers: patients complete tasks and questionnaires, and the clinician gets a report. Creyos Research serves academic and commercial studies and gives researchers access to raw data. Creyos’s researcher pages still say “formerly Cambridge Brain Sciences” for continuity with the papers that used the old name.

The two share the tasks but serve different purposes. A study volunteer and a patient might see similar screens. Only the clinical version produces a report for a clinician to interpret with you.

What did not change for patients

A new name doesn’t change what a cognitive test can and can’t do. These points still hold:

• It measures how you perform on short tasks covering memory, reasoning, concentration and verbal ability, then compares your scores with people your age.
• Creyos is registered and listed with the FDA as a Class II, 510(k)-exempt computerized cognitive assessment aid; it is not FDA-cleared or approved and does not diagnose any condition. The federal rule for this device type describes it as a prescription device.
• It is a computerized cognitive assessment, not neuropsychological testing. If you need a full evaluation for school accommodations, legal or disability purposes, that is done by a psychologist or neuropsychologist. Our page on psychiatric vs. psychological evaluations explains the difference.
• Results depend on the day. Sleep, mood, pain, distractions and whether you’ve seen the tasks before all affect scores.

What did change is mostly behind the scenes: a redesigned interface, health questionnaires added to the platform (Creyos’s timeline says questionnaires arrived in 2017), and protocols built around specific clinical questions, such as the one used alongside an adult ADHD evaluation.

If your clinician uses Creyos

Willow & Stone offers Creyos as part of a clinical evaluation, and Dr. Stacey Forbes, a board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, reviews the results with you. The results add to the conversation; they don’t make the decision.

Details such as the fee, whether it’s part of your evaluation, and whether you take it at home or in the Arlington office are confirmed when you book. Ask our team through the consultation page, and see our pricing for the visit fees that are already public.

Common Questions

Sources & Further Reading

• Creyos — Cambridge Brain Sciences is now Creyos (rebrand post, Nov 2, 2022)
• Creyos — About (company timeline and leadership)
• openFDA — Device registration listing for Creyos
• FDA — Product classification PTY, computerized cognitive assessment aid (exempt)
• Creyos — For researchers (Creyos Research)
• Creyos — Understanding the Creyos Health Normative Database (PDF)
• Hampshire A, et al. Fractionating human intelligence. Neuron, 2012
• Owen AM, et al. Putting brain training to the test. Nature, 2010 (PMC)

This article is general education, not a diagnosis or advice for your situation. Creyos results support, and never replace, a clinical evaluation; only a clinician who has evaluated you can diagnose a condition or recommend treatment. Do not start, stop, or change a medication without talking to the clinician who prescribes it.