A new metric developed by Lumos Labs based on their cognitive training and tracking software Lumosity seeks to track “brain performance” or cognitive capacity of cities in a more direct way by measuring the cognitive performance of more than one million users in the United States who use their games against their location using IP geolocation software.

The top five brainy clusters: Charlottesville Virginia, Lafayette Indiana, Anchorage Alaska, Madison Wisconsin, and the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area.

The analysis controlled for age, so the reason they score well is not simply that they have a lot of young people,
says the company. Instead, the analysis seems to show that users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations.

America’s 25 brainiest metros, according to Lumosity’s metrics:

Charlottesville, Virginia
Lafayette, Indiana
Anchorage Alaska
Madison, Wisconsin
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, Iowa
Honolulu
Johnstown-Altoona, Pennsylvania
Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, Illinois
Minneapolis-St. Paul
Boston-Manchester (Massachusetts/New Hampshire)
Austin
Rochester, New York
Gainesville, Florida
Fargo-Valley City North Dakota
Lansing, Michigan
Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo
Burlington-Plattsburgh (Vermont/New York)
Pittsburgh
Syracuse, New York
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri
La Crosse-Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York Pennsylvania
Springfield-Holyoke, Massachusetts