With the prevalence of dementia increasing each year, preclinically implemented therapeutic interventions are critically needed. It has been suggested that cascading neural network failures may bring on behavioural deficits associated with Alzheimers disease. Previously we have shown that cognitive-motor integration (CMI) training in adults with mild cognitive impairments generalized to improved global cognitive and activities of daily living scores. Here we employ a novel movement-control based training approach involving CMI rather than traditional cognition-only brain training. We hypothesized that such training would stimulate widespread neural networks and enhance rule-based visuomotor ability in at-risk individuals. We observed a significant improvement in bimanual coordination in the at-risk training group. We also observed significant decreases in movement variability for the most complex CMI condition in the at-risk and healthy training groups. These data suggest that integrating cognition into action in a training intervention may be effective at strengthening vulnerable brain networks in asymptomatic adults at risk for developing dementia
