Urban residence and higher education do not protect against cognitive decline in aging and dementia: 10-Year follow-up of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging

The construct of cognitive reserve has primarily been defined in terms of a single proxy measure, education. There may, however, be alternative, potentially additive, proxy measures of cognitive reserve, such as rural or urban residence. Using a large sample of 10,263 older Canadians, ranging in age between 64 and 99 years (mean age = 75.7 years, SD = 7.1), residents of rural and urban areas were compared using the Modified Mini-Mental State (3MS) examination as a dependent variable. Within this sample, subsamples of demented and non-demented individuals were investigated. The 3MS data were analyzed using a linear mixed model with years of education and residence as proxies of cognitive reserve and time of testing (linear and quadratic) as a within-groups variable. All predictor variables in the model (i.e., gender, age, education, residence, and time of testing) had a significant impact on cognitive functioning. The results showed that, although urban residents and higher educated individuals performed better than rural residents and lower educated individuals at baseline, these performance benefits were nullified at 10-year follow-up. The disappearance of these initial performance benefits suggests that urban dwellers and higher educated individuals are not protected against age-related cognitive decline. Thus, no support was found for the cognitive reserve hypothesis

Proactive motor control within and between hands:Effects of age, motor set, and cue type

Several studies have reported that proactive motor control in a cued four-finger choice reaction task proceeds more efficiently with a 2-hands motor set (two fingers on each hand) than with a 1-hand motor set (four fingers on one hand). According to the Grouping Model, this is because the 2-hands motor set recruits distinct left and right hand representations located in separate cerebral hemispheres, whereas the 1-hand motor set recruits partially overlapping neural areas grouped together in one hemisphere. The latter neural organization increases neuromotor noise, thereby complicating proactive motor selection. The present study examined the effect of older age on the 2-hands motor selection advantage. A group of young and a group of older adults performed two proactive motor tasks—the procue task and the anticue task—with two motor sets: a 2-hands and 1-hand set. Predictive cues preceded the target signal at five different time intervals (100–850 ms), allowing advance selection of 2 out of 4 fingers. Older adults showed longer reaction times and smaller cueing benefits compared to younger adults. Overall, cueing benefits were greater, and accrued faster, with the 2-hands than with the 1-hand motor set, reflecting the beneficial impact of the neuroanatomical hand distinction. Importantly, the 2-hands advantage was substantially greater in the older age group, suggesting that the hand distinction might abate age-related neural dedifferentiation. These findings highlight the impact of cortical representational distinctiveness in proactive motor control, especially in older age

Productive failure as an instructional approach to promote future learning

Productive failure is an instructional approach that requires learners to struggle as they attempt to generate solutions to problems before, rather than after, receiving direct instruction on a targeted concept. Studies demonstrate that productive failure prepares students for later learning of new, related knowledge. Our study explored the effectiveness of productive failure as an instructional intervention in health professions education with respect to (a) acquisition and application of a novel concept, and (b) learners’ preparation for future learning of new, related content. Forty year-one students enrolled in the Doctor of Pharmacy program at the University of Toronto were randomly assigned to a productive failure (i.e. attempt to generate solutions before receiving instruction) or direct instruction only learning condition. After a practice phase, participants completed a series of tests designed to measure knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, and preparation for future learning (new learning is required for successful problem solving). As expected, no difference in performance was seen between participants on the acquisition and application tests. However, participants in the productive failure condition outperformed those in the direct instruction condition on the preparation for future learning test. These results emphasize the role of struggle in learning and support the theory that engaging students in solving problems that are beyond their abilities can be a productive exercise in failure. The results suggest that productive failure assists learners in acquiring the conceptual knowledge needed to facilitate learning in the future

Practice makes perfect: High performance gains in older adults engaged in selective attention within and across sensory modalities

Selective attention has been found to decline with aging, possibly depending on the sensory modality through which targets and distractors are presented. We investigated the capacity of older adults to improve performance on visual and auditory selective attention tasks. 31 younger (mean age = 22.8 years, SD = 2.1) and 29 older participants (mean age = 69.5 years, SD = 5.8) performed visual and auditory tasks with and without unimodal and cross-modal distraction across five practice sessions. Reaction time decreased with practice in both age groups. Strikingly, this performance improvement was similar across the age groups. Moreover, distractor modality did not affect performance gains in either age group. Older adults were disproportionally affected by cross-modal visual distraction, however, corroborating previous studies. This age-related effect was mitigated during the practice sessions. Finally, there was no transfer of practice to neuropsychological test performance. These results suggest a high capacity of older individuals to improve selective attention functions within and across sensory modalities

The neural correlates of visual and auditory cross-modal selective attention in aging

Age-related deficits in selective attention have been demonstrated to depend on the sensory modality through which targets and distractors are presented. Some of these investigations suggest a specific impairment of cross-modal auditory selective attention. For the first time, this study is taking on a whole brain approach while including a passive perception baseline, to investigate the neural underpinnings of selective attention across age groups, and taking the sensory modality of relevant and irrelevant (i.e., distracting) stimuli into account. Sixteen younger (mean age = 23.3 years) and 14 older (mean age = 65.3 years), healthy participants performed a series of delayed match-to-sample tasks, in which participants had to selectively attend to visual stimuli, selectively attend to auditory stimuli, or passively view and hear both types of stimuli, while undergoing 3T fMRI. The imaging analyses showed that areas recruited by cross-modal visual and auditory selective attention in both age groups included parts of the dorsal attention and frontoparietal control networks (i.e., intraparietal sulcus, insula, fusiform gyrus, anterior cingulate, and inferior frontal cortex). Most importantly, activation throughout the brain did not differ across age groups, suggesting intact brain function during cross-modal selective attention in older adults. Moreover, stronger brain activation during cross-modal visual vs. cross-modal auditory selective attention was found in both age groups, which is consistent with earlier accounts of visual dominance. In conclusion, these results do not support the hypothesized age-related deficit of cross-modal auditory selective attention. Instead, they suggest that the underlying neural correlates of cross-modal selective attention are similar in younger and older adults

The effects of light physical activity on learning in adolescents: a systematic review

The effects of light physical activity (LPA) interventions on adolescents’ learning were reviewed. Learning was operationalized as academic performance and academic-performance-related cognitive functions. Using PubMed, Web of Science, ERIC, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and Cochrane Library, only English-language studies published until 19-07-2021 were included. Of the resulting 49, 34 studies posed a low risk of bias, covering: executive functions (inhibition, updating, and shifting), memory, and academic performance. The quality of evidence of each outcome was very low, mainly due to inconsistencies in results between studies. Nonetheless, most studies found positive (n = 15) or null (n = 14) effects of LPA interventions on adolescents’ learning. Negative effects of LPA interventions were only found from studies with on-task procedures (n = 5). Only two studies utilized longitudinal LPA interventions, of which one reported positive effects, and the other reported null effects. Future studies should explore the role of potential moderators, e.g. timing of LPA interventions with regard to the learning and testing phases. Overall, while introducing LPA in the classroom may be effective at breaking up prolonged sedentary behavior, more high-quality research is needed to establish its positive effect on learning.</p

The effects of standing in tutorial group meetings on learning: A randomized controlled trial

Background: Standing desks have been brought into the education environment to reduce sedentary behavior among students. The current study explored the effects of standing in tutorial group meetings on learning among undergraduate students. Methods: Ninety-six participants were randomly allocated to a Sit or Stand group, with 2 h tutorial group meetings scheduled, once or twice per week, for nine weeks. Learning was analyzed using exam grades, concept maps, and tutorial interactions. Results: Overall, the Sit and Stand groups did not differ from each other in terms of learning, measured through their exam, concept map, and the use of learning-oriented interactions. Conclusion: Standing in tutorial group meetings neither enhanced nor compromised learning. Considering the health risks associated with prolonged sedentary behavior, offering standing tutorial group meetings to undergraduate students is a recommended solution to break up prolonged sedentary behavior and encourage more physical activity, while maintaining the learning performance of students