The Creyos Cognitive Assessment: What It Measures, What It Can’t, and How We Use It

Creyos is a computerized cognitive assessment: about a dozen timed puzzles, taken on a computer or tablet, that measure how your short-term memory, reasoning, concentration and verbal skills are working right now compared with people your age. It does not diagnose ADHD, depression or dementia, and it is not a substitute for a clinical evaluation or for full neuropsychological testing. What it adds is a measured snapshot that a clinician can set beside your story. This guide explains what the tasks are, how scores are reported, what the research does and doesn’t support, and how we use Creyos at Willow & Stone.

Creyos at a glance

Think of Creyos as a structured way to see, rather than guess, how certain thinking skills performed on one particular day. That is useful, because people are often poor judges of their own memory and focus: anxious people tend to rate themselves worse than they test, and some people with real attention problems underestimate them. A score sheet doesn’t settle the question, though. Sleep the night before, mood, pain, medication, a noisy room or simply never having used a trackpad can all move a score. The rest of this guide is about holding both of those truths at once.

If you are new to the idea of measuring thinking skills at all, our plain-English primer, what is a cognitive assessment?, covers the different kinds, from five-minute office screens to day-long testing, before you dive into the Creyos specifics below.

Where Creyos came from

Creyos began as Cambridge Brain Sciences, a web platform built on cognitive tasks that originated in the research of Professor Adrian Owen, whose lab is now at Western University in Canada and who is the company’s Chief Scientific Officer. The company, legally Cambridge Brain Sciences Inc., operating as Creyos, is based in Toronto. It renamed itself Creyos in 2022. If you remember taking “Cambridge Brain Sciences” puzzles years ago, through a research study or a wellness program, these are the descendants of those tasks.

Two things changed along the way. First, there is no longer a consumer version you can sign up for yourself; the old public site now redirects to creyos.com, and patients reach the assessment only through a clinician who sends a link or sets it up in the office. Second, the company now sells two products: Creyos Health, the clinical platform a practice like ours uses, and Creyos Research, used by universities and companies running studies. The tasks and questionnaires are available in English, Spanish and French.

The scientific backbone is a 2012 paper in the journal Neuron by Hampshire, Highfield, Parkin and Owen, which used tens of thousands of online participants to argue that what we call intelligence breaks down into at least three separable components, roughly memory, reasoning and verbal ability, each tied to different brain networks. Data from that study seeded the reference group Creyos still compares people against. The full story of the rename and the research lineage is in Cambridge Brain Sciences is now Creyos.

The 12 tasks and the four areas they measure

Creyos’s core battery is 12 short tasks grouped into four domains. Each looks like a simple puzzle; each is a computerized version of a well-studied laboratory test. Most take about two to three minutes. Some have a hard time limit (90 seconds for the faster tasks, three minutes for the reasoning puzzles) and the rest end when you reach your limit.

A thirteenth task, the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART), is a roughly six-minute exercise in pressing for most items and holding back for one. It is used only in the ADHD protocol described below. Creyos generates new problems each time rather than using a fixed answer sheet, which is part of how it tries to limit memorized answers on a repeat test.

Your clinician doesn’t have to give all 12. Creyos offers pre-built subsets (“protocols”) and suggested task lists for particular questions, and a clinician can choose individual tasks. For a task-by-task walkthrough of what each puzzle looks like and the older test it comes from, see every Creyos task explained. For background on the skills themselves, we have separate guides to working memory, processing speed and executive function and how it is assessed.

The questionnaires that can go with it

Alongside the tasks, Creyos can deliver standard symptom questionnaires in the same session, so the clinician sees performance and self-report side by side. The platform lists 16, among them the PHQ-9 for depression, the GAD-7 for anxiety, the ASRS Part A for adult ADHD symptoms, the Vanderbilt (VADRS) and SWAN parent ratings for children and teens, the Mood Disorder Questionnaire, the PCL-5 for trauma symptoms, the Perceived Stress Scale, a sleep-quality index (PSQI), and alcohol and drug screens.

A few details matter for families. Creyos itself labels the PHQ-9 and the ASRS for adults 18 and older, and it does not offer the adolescent PHQ-A, so a clinician choosing questionnaires for a 12-year-old picks differently than for a 40-year-old. The MoCA, the Conners scales and the ADHD-RS-5 are not part of the platform. Which questionnaires Willow & Stone uses, and for whom, is something to ask our team; it isn’t set in stone for every patient.

Questionnaires are screening tools, not verdicts. A high score means “look closer,” not “you have this.” If you want to understand a specific one, we explain the PHQ-9 depression questionnaire, the GAD-7 anxiety questionnaire and the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) in their own guides, and list every questionnaire Creyos offers, with its age label, in the questionnaires in a Creyos assessment. For the bigger picture on what screening can and cannot establish, see mental health screening vs diagnosis.

How long it takes, and where you take it

Timing depends on what your clinician orders. According to Creyos, the full 12-task battery takes about 40 minutes, and the ADHD protocol about 20 to 25 minutes; questionnaires add a few minutes each. Many people find the tasks oddly absorbing; others find the timed ones stressful. Both reactions are normal, and the tasks are designed so almost nobody gets everything right.

Creyos is built so it can be taken either in a clinic or remotely through a secure link the clinician sends. A parent or support person may be present at home. A few practical rules come straight from Creyos’s help center:

• Use a laptop or desktop computer (a wired mouse or keyboard is preferred) or a tablet with a screen 8 inches or larger. Mobile phones are not recommended.
• Pick a quiet room, close other tabs and silence notifications; interruptions can make a result look invalid.
• Remote links expire after 45 days, so finish within that window.
• Do it when you are reasonably rested; a short night can lower scores on its own.

Whether Willow & Stone has you take Creyos at home before a visit, in our Arlington office, or either, is not something we publish yet: ask our team when you book. The same goes for caffeine and medication on the day: your clinician will tell you whether to take your usual medication that morning, and you should not skip or change a dose on your own to “get a cleaner result.”

For a step-by-step preparation checklist, read taking the Creyos assessment: what to expect. If you are deciding between visiting in person and doing everything by video, compare Creyos cognitive testing in Arlington, Fort Worth and Dallas with our page on online cognitive assessment by telehealth.

How your scores are calculated and reported

Every Creyos score is a comparison. Your performance on each task is set against a reference group of more than 85,000 people, matched to your age band, and optionally your gender. The bands run from age 6 upward, with separate bands for 10–12, 13–15 and 16–17 and then adult decades. That is why we describe Creyos as age-normed from age 6 rather than “designed for children”: norms exist, but the pediatric research base is thinner than the adult one. (Willow & Stone sees patients 10 and older; that is our practice policy, not a Creyos limit.)

Scores are reported as standard scores, the same scale used by many IQ and memory tests: the average is 100 and the standard deviation is 15. In Creyos’s reports, a score of 87 or lower is labelled below average (about the 20th percentile, meaning roughly 80 of 100 same-age people scored higher), and 113 or higher is above average (about the 80th percentile). Scores between are in the typical range. Results are also summarized by domain, so a clinician can see, for example, strong reasoning next to weaker short-term memory.

Two built-in flags help with interpretation. A Validity Indicator marks results that fall outside what almost everyone in the reference group produces, which can mean the person was interrupted, misunderstood the instructions or clicked randomly. A Meaningful Change Indicator compares a repeat test with an earlier one; it uses a deliberately lenient statistical threshold (two-tailed p < 0.2), so a “meaningful change” flag is a prompt to look closer, not proof of a real shift.

Two caveats about the reference group are worth knowing. It is made of volunteers recruited online, largely from North America and Europe, who were not screened for health conditions; and its averages are based on people taking each task for the first time. A line-by-line guide to the report, with an illustrative example, is in how to read a Creyos report.

Creyos and the FDA, in exact words

This is the area most often misstated online, so here is the precise version. 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. Its FDA product code is PTY, under the federal regulation 21 CFR 882.1470.

What does that mean in practice? Registration and listing tell the FDA who makes a device and what it is. They are not a review of whether the device works, and federal rules say registration does not denote FDA approval. The 510(k)-exempt status means this category of device can be marketed without the premarket notification that leads to an FDA “clearance,” provided it stays within limits, the main one being that it is not used for diagnostic assessment of specific diseases or conditions.

The regulation itself is clear about what such a device is: a prescription device that does not identify the presence or absence of clinical diagnoses and is not intended as a stand-alone or adjunctive diagnostic device. Creyos’s own documents agree, calling it “not a diagnostic tool” to be used with other information and clinical judgment. A website describing Creyos as FDA-approved or cleared is not describing it correctly.

What Creyos is not

Not a diagnosis

Diagnoses such as ADHD, depression or a neurocognitive disorder rest on a clinical interview, history, symptom patterns over time, how symptoms affect daily life, and ruling out other explanations. A cognitive score can support or challenge a hypothesis; it can’t make the call. For ADHD in particular, Creyos’s own science guide says its protocol is not a standalone diagnostic tool and provides no cutoffs, so its sensitivity and specificity cannot be calculated.

Not neuropsychological testing

A full neuropsychological evaluation is typically done by a neuropsychologist over several hours, combines many paper-and-computer tests with a detailed interview, and ends in a written report that can document learning disabilities, brain injury effects or dementia staging. Creyos is shorter, automated, and reviewed by the treating clinician. Willow & Stone does not provide psychological or neuropsychological testing, and if your question needs that level of testing, for school accommodations, a legal matter or a complex memory problem, we will tell you so. We explain how to tell which you need in Creyos or a full neuropsychological evaluation?, and how the evaluation types differ in psychiatric vs psychological evaluation.

Not brain training

Taking Creyos doesn’t make you sharper, and practicing the tasks won’t improve your memory in daily life. Ironically, one of the best-known studies against brain-training claims, a 2010 Nature paper with more than 11,000 participants, came from Owen’s group; we summarize it in does brain training work?.

Not the same as a free online quiz

Free memory quizzes can be fun, but they usually lack age norms, validity checks and a clinician to interpret them. Our guide to free online cognitive tests covers what they can reasonably tell you.

How accurate is Creyos? An honest summary

“Accurate” means different things for different questions, and the evidence for Creyos is uneven. Here is the short version; is Creyos accurate? what the research says goes study by study.

• Consistency from one sitting to the next is moderate overall. Creyos’s own data show an average test-retest correlation of about 0.69 across the 12 tasks, ranging from roughly 0.45 for Paired Associates to about 0.9 for the best tasks. Several tasks sit below the level usually wanted for decisions about one individual.
• Independent home-testing data look similar. In a 2022 study of adults aged 55 to 75 who took a mixed battery including these tasks at home three times, single-task reliability ranged widely (0.20 to 0.83) while combined composite scores were reliable (above 0.8).
• It relates sensibly to other measures, but agreement on “impairment” can be poor. A 2026 independent review of concussion-clinic records found that Creyos, the MoCA and the King-Devick test agreed on who was impaired in only 3 of 359 visits; the authors concluded cognitive tests are not a stand-alone measure.
• Telling conditions apart is modest. In a 2024 pediatric study, four of the tasks correctly classified only about 53–60% of children with ADHD, autism or neither.

None of that makes Creyos useless. It means a single score should never carry a decision by itself, which is exactly how the FDA category, Creyos’s own guides and good clinical practice all frame it. Composite and domain scores are steadier than any single task, and a result that fits the rest of the picture is more informative than one that contradicts it.

Where Creyos can help: ADHD, mood, brain fog and memory concerns

Creyos is a general-purpose measure, so its value depends on the question being asked. The four situations we hear about most each have their own guide.

ADHD questions

Creyos’s ADHD protocol uses four core tasks (Spatial Planning, Token Search, Feature Match and Double Trouble) plus the SART and one age-appropriate rating scale, producing 14 markers, each compared with a threshold one standard deviation from the age-group average. Creyos notes that many people with ADHD score in the typical range on most markers, so a “normal” result does not rule ADHD out, and the markers are not specific to ADHD. Read Creyos in an ADHD evaluation for what it adds, how it compares with QbTest, TOVA and CNS Vital Signs, and our adult ADHD evaluation page for how the diagnosis is actually made. If you wonder whether foggy focus is ADHD at all, see ADHD brain fog.

Depression and anxiety

Depression often slows thinking and makes concentration and memory feel worse; anxiety can crowd working memory. Measuring those effects can make an invisible symptom concrete, though Creyos has no published validation specific to depression yet. See depression and thinking: memory, focus and slowed processing.

Brain fog

“Brain fog” is a description, not a diagnosis. A baseline measurement can show which skills are actually affected, which helps target the search for causes: sleep, medications, hormones, thyroid or iron problems, mood, or the aftermath of an infection. Our brain fog evaluation page explains how we approach it, and is there a test for brain fog? answers the short version. Related guides cover medications that can cause brain fog, perimenopause and menopause brain fog, how poor sleep affects memory and focus and long COVID brain fog. For broader causes, our existing article on brain fog, fatigue and mood swings remains the deep dive.

Memory worries and children

Forgetfulness in midlife is common and usually not dementia, but some patterns deserve a proper workup from primary care or a memory clinic. Forgetful or something more? covers when to get tested and by whom, and Creyos vs MoCA and other memory screens compares the tools. Parents should start with cognitive testing for kids and teens.

Repeating Creyos, and the question of medication

Because Creyos generates fresh problems each time, a clinician may repeat it to compare with your baseline, for example months into treatment for depression, or after sleep has improved. That comparison has real limits. People usually do a little better the second time just from familiarity (Creyos’s own data show average practice gains of a few percent, larger on some tasks), and the norms are based on first attempts. Sleep, stress, illness and the time of day can move scores as much as anything else. Retesting with Creyos explains baselines, intervals and practice effects in more detail.

One claim deserves a direct answer. You may read marketing suggesting that Creyos can track whether a medication is working. We could not find any peer-reviewed study showing that Creyos-guided monitoring improves medication decisions for ADHD or any other condition. Creyos does not tell you whether a medication is working, and we don’t use it that way. Decisions about medication are made by your prescriber from how you feel and function, side effects, and your goals, and you should never start, stop or change a medication on the strength of a test score. Our article is my ADHD medication working? looks at what the research does and doesn’t show.

A more established idea is measurement-based care: repeating brief symptom questionnaires such as the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 over time so that progress is tracked with numbers as well as impressions. That is a different tool from cognitive tasks, and we describe it in measurement-based care.

What it costs and how billing works

Creyos publishes no patient prices; it sells subscriptions to clinics, and each practice decides what to charge. So the honest answer to “how much is Creyos?” is: it depends on the practice and on whether the assessment is bundled into a visit or billed on its own.

When it is billed to insurance, clinicians may use testing codes rather than a “Creyos code.” In plain English: 96146 covers a single automated test with an automated result; 96136 through 96139 cover test administration and scoring; 96130 through 96133 cover the clinician’s interpretation and feedback; and 96127 covers brief scored questionnaires (generally not billed separately when testing happens the same day). These are codes clinicians may use, not proof that a plan will pay. Coverage depends on your plan, the reason for testing and the clinician’s license and state.

At Willow & Stone, what we can say today: the 90-minute first evaluation is $300 and follow-up visits are $150. Insurance is accepted only for Texas patients, depending on the plan. Patients in our other states pay directly and can request a superbill for possible out-of-network reimbursement. The Creyos fee, and whether it’s part of the $300 evaluation, are confirmed when you book; so is whether Texas plans cover it. See our pricing and the full breakdown in what a Creyos assessment costs and whether insurance pays.

How Willow & Stone uses Creyos

Willow & Stone offers Creyos as of October 2026. Dr. Stacey Forbes, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, a board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner, reviews the results with you as part of a clinical evaluation. Creyos supports that evaluation; it never replaces the conversation about your history, symptoms, health and goals. In practice, that means a score sits beside your story, any questionnaires, a medical and medication review, and, where useful, lab work such as our advanced psychiatric lab testing. Creyos is also a different kind of test from pharmacogenomic testing; if you have heard of GeneSight testing, that looks at genes involved in medication metabolism, not at thinking skills.

Because we would rather be clear than vague, here is what is not yet published about Creyos at Willow & Stone. Each of these is confirmed when you book, or you can ask our team before then:

• The fee, and whether Creyos is included in the $300 first evaluation or billed separately.
• Whether you take it remotely through a link, in the Arlington office, or either.
• Whether Texas insurance plans cover it for you.
• Which tasks and questionnaires are used for your situation.
• When in your care it happens, and when results are reviewed with you.
• Whether and when a repeat assessment would make sense.
• Whether to take your usual medication and caffeine on the day.

Creyos fits naturally into our integrative psychiatric evaluation, which looks at mind and body together. We see patients aged 10 and older, in person in Arlington, Texas, and by telehealth in the other states where Dr. Forbes is licensed; you need to be physically in one of those states at the time of your visit. When you are ready, you can request a consultation or call (469) 726-3768.

Privacy and your data

Creyos states that its platform meets or exceeds standards such as HIPAA. That is the company’s own description, not an independent certification we can verify for you. Its privacy policy explains that when you take Creyos through a clinician, your health information is governed by the contract between Creyos and that practice and by the practice’s HIPAA notice of privacy practices, not by Creyos’s general website policy. Creyos’s terms describe the platform as intended for use in the United States and Canada.

In plain terms: your results become part of your medical record with the practice that ordered them. You can ask any practice, including ours, how results are stored, who can see them, and how to get a copy. If you take Creyos at home, you are using Creyos’s secure website through a link, not downloading software, and you can close the page and return within the link’s 45-day window if something interrupts you.

Is a Creyos assessment right for you?

Creyos tends to be most useful when there is a specific question a measurement could help answer, and a clinician who will interpret it in context. A few examples of good reasons:

• You or your teen are being evaluated for ADHD and the picture is mixed: some signs, but also anxiety, poor sleep or a demanding schedule that could explain them.
• You feel your memory or focus has slipped and want to know which skills are actually affected before chasing causes.
• You are starting treatment for depression or anxiety and would like a documented baseline to compare later, understanding the limits of repeat testing.
• You have tried online quizzes and want something with age norms and a clinician to explain it.

It is less likely to help, or the wrong tool, when you need a formal report for school accommodations, a disability claim or court; when the main concern is significant memory loss in an older adult, which calls for primary care and often neurology or a memory clinic; or when you are in crisis, in which case safety comes first. Before booking anywhere, it is reasonable to ask:

1. Who will interpret my results, and will we go over them together?
2. Which tasks and questionnaires will I take, and why?
3. Is it done at home or in the office, and what device do I need?
4. What does it cost, and is it part of a visit or separate?
5. What happens if the results don’t match how I feel?

If you have questions we haven’t answered here, our team is glad to walk through them before you commit to anything.

Common Questions

Sources & Further Reading

• Creyos — Report Interpretation Guide (PDF)
• Creyos — Understanding the Creyos Health Normative Database (PDF)
• Creyos — ADHD Report Science Guide (PDF)
• Creyos — Online cognitive tasks (12 tasks, four domains)
• Creyos help center — Device and browser requirements
• FDA — Product classification, code PTY (computerized cognitive assessment aid, exempt)
• eCFR — 21 CFR 882.1470, Computerized cognitive assessment aid
• Kochan et al. Reliability, validity, and user-experience of remote unsupervised computerized neuropsychological assessment (J Alzheimers Dis, 2022) — PubMed
• Streicher et al. Cognitive screening tests in concussion: classification agreement (Neurotrauma Rep, 2026) — PubMed
• APA Services — 2026 Psychological and Neuropsychological Testing Billing and Coding Guide (PDF)

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.