Brain Training Game Improves Executive Functions and Processing Speed in the Elderly: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The beneficial effects of brain training games are expected to transfer to other cognitive functions, but these beneficial effects are poorly understood. Here we investigate the impact of the brain training game (Brain Age) on cognitive functions in the elderly.Thirty-two elderly volunteers were recruited through an advertisement in the local newspaper and randomly assigned to either of two game groups (Brain Age, Tetris). This study was completed by 14 of the 16 members in the Brain Age group and 14 of the 16 members in the Tetris group. To maximize the benefit of the interventions, all participants were non-gamers who reported playing less than one hour of video games per week over the past 2 years. Participants in both the Brain Age and the Tetris groups played their game for about 15 minutes per day, at least 5 days per week, for 4 weeks. Each group played for a total of about 20 days. Measures of the cognitive functions were conducted before and after training. Measures of the cognitive functions fell into four categories (global cognitive status, executive functions, attention, and processing speed). Results showed that the effects of the brain training game were transferred to executive functions and to processing speed. However, the brain training game showed no transfer effect on any global cognitive status nor attention.Our results showed that playing Brain Age for 4 weeks could lead to improve cognitive functions (executive functions and processing speed) in the elderly. This result indicated that there is a possibility which the elderly could improve executive functions and processing speed in short term training. The results need replication in large samples. Long-term effects and relevance for every-day functioning remain uncertain as yet.UMIN Clinical Trial Registry 000002825

Insular and hippocampal contributions to remembering people with an impression of bad personality.

Our impressions of other people are formed mainly from the two possible factors of facial attractiveness and trustworthiness. Previous studies have shown the importance of orbitofrontal-hippocampal interactions in the better remembering of attractive faces, and psychological data have indicated that faces giving an impression of untrustworthiness are remembered more accurately than those giving an impression of trustworthiness. However, the neural mechanisms of the latter effect are largely unknown. To investigate this issue, we investigated neural activities with event-related fMRI while the female participants rated their impressions of the personalities of men in terms of trustworthiness. After the rating, memory for faces was tested to identify successful encoding activity. As expected, faces that gave bad impressions were remembered better than those that gave neutral or good impressions. In fMRI data, right insular activity reflected an increasing function of bad impressions, and bilateral hippocampal activities predicted subsequent memory success. Additionally, correlation between these insular and hippocampal regions was significant only in the encoding of faces associated with a bad impression. Better memory for faces associated with an impression of bad personality could reflect greater interaction between the avoidance-related insular region and the encoding-related hippocampal region

Superior Temporal Activity for the Retrieval Process of Auditory-Word Associations

Previous neuroimaging studies have reported that learning multisensory associations involves the superior temporal regions (Tanabe et al, 2005). However, the neural mechanisms underlying the retrieval of multi-sensory associations were unclear. This functional MRI (fMRI) study investigated brain activations during the retrieval of multi-sensory associations. Eighteen right-handed college-aged Japanese participants learned associations between meaningless pictures and words (Vw), meaningless sounds and words (Aw), and meaningless sounds and visual words (W). During fMRI scanning, participants were presented with old and new words and were required to judge whether the words were included in the conditions of Vw, Aw, W or New. We found that the left superior temporal region showed greater activity during the retrieval of words learned in Aw than in Vw, whereas no region showed greater activity for the Vw condition versus the Aw condition (k > 10, p < .001, uncorrected). Taken together, the left superior temporal region could play an essential role in the retrieval process of auditory-word associations

Cognitive function scores at before and after training in both groups.

<p>The group comparison (two sample <i>t</i>-tests) of the pre training scores demonstrated that there were no significant differences in any measures of cognitive functions between the brain training group and the Tetris training group (<i>p</i>>0.10). Error bars indicate SEM across subjects in each subject group. (A) The Executive functions were measured by frontal assessment battery at bedside (FAB) and trail making test type B (TMT-B). (B) The processing speeds were measured by symbol search (SS) and digit symbol coding (CD). (C) (D) The general cognitive function was measured by mini-mental state examination (MMSE). The attention was measured by digit cancellation task (D-CAT), digit span forward (DS-F) and digit span backward (DS-B).</p

The score of change in cognitive functions measures of both groups.

<p>Change scores were calculated by subtracting the pre-cognitive measure score from the post-cognitive measure score. The Executive functions were measured by frontal assessment battery at bedside (FAB) and trail making test type B (TMT-B). The processing speeds were measured by digit symbol coding (Cd) and symbol search (SS). The global cognitive status was measured by mini-mental state examination (MMSE). The attention was measured by digit cancellation task (D-CAT), digit span forward (DS-F) and digit span backward (DS-B). We report eta square (η²) as an index of effect size. It is a standardized difference in the change score (post-training score minus pre-training score) between intervention groups (Brain Age, Tetris). <i>η²</i>≥.01 is regarded as small effect, <i>η</i>²≥.06 as medium effect, and <i>η²</i>≥.14 as large effect. SD means standard deviation.</p

Characteristics of the participants in Brain Age and Tetris group.

<p>There are no significant difference between Brain age and Tetris groups (two sample t-test, <i>p</i>>0.10). M, the number of men; F, the number of women; MMSE, mini-mental state examination; FAB, frontal assessment battery at bedside; SD, standard deviation.</p

CONSORT flowchart.

<p>CONSORT flowchart.</p