Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
Senior Citizens Show Significant
Visual Memory Improvement After Brain Training
‘The brains
of older adults, like those of young people, are ‘plastic’ – the brain
can change in response to focused training’
July 15, 2010 -
A commercial brain fitness program has been shown to improve memory in
senior citizens, at least in the period soon after training. The
findings among this group with an average age of 72 are the first to
show that practicing simple visual tasks can improve the accuracy of
short-term, or “working” visual memory.
The research,
led by scientists at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is
also one of the first to measure both mental performance and changes in
neural activity caused by a cognitive training program.
In the study,
healthy older participants trained on a computer game designed to boost
visual perception. After ten hours of training, they not only improved
their perceptual abilities significantly, but also increased the
accuracy of their visual working memory by about ten percent – bringing
them up to the level of younger adults. Few brain training programs have
been subjected to such rigorous research evaluation to reveal such a
transfer of benefits, the researchers say.
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Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health |
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Working memory
is the ability to hold information in mind for brief periods. It is
essential to accomplish immediate tasks, such as engaging in
conversation with several people.
If improvements
in a simple perception skill can transfer to a higher level function
such as memory, as this research found, then other interventions might
further improve brain function in aging people, the scientists say.
The researchers
recorded participants’ brain activity before and after the visual
perception training, and found a direct link between improved
performance and changes in brain activity. After the training, activity
had decreased in a key brain area involved in processing visual input.
The people who improved the most in the visual training showed the
biggest drop in neural activity – as if the brain didn’t have to work as
hard to take in information.
The research was
being published in the journal PLoS One on July 14, 2010.
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Adam Gazzaley, MD,
PhD |
“This confirms
our understanding that the brains of older adults, like those of young
people, are ‘plastic’ – the brain can change in response to focused
training,” said Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, director of the Neuroscience
Imaging Center at UCSF and senior author of the research paper. Gazzaley
is associate professor of neurology, physiology and psychiatry at UCSF.
“The study shows
that perceptual improvements with simple discrimination training can
transfer to improved working memory in older adults, and it also shows
that this increase in memory accuracy is linked to changes at the neural
level.”
There are many
brain fitness programs being marketed, but there has been little
rigorous testing and evaluations of their effectiveness, Gazzaley said.
“We zeroed in on
one specific regimen, and we can see that at least with this approach,
some brain fitness program claims may be warranted.”
Gazzaley’s team
collaborated with researchers at Posit Science Corp., a producer and
promoter of brain fitness programs. Posit Science was co-founded by
Michael Merzenich, PhD, a leader in brain plasticity research and
professor emeritus, Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience and
Otolaryngology at UCSF. Posit Science funded the research.
Memory
improvement was measured about one week after the visual perception
training ended. The scientists did not assess how long the memory
improvement might last beyond that period without continued training.
A further test
showed that if participants had to multi-task during the memory testing,
they did not receive the memory boost from the previous perception
training. Gazzaley hopes that more studies can lead to ways to help
people improve their ability to mentally process simultaneous tasks – a
skill that declines in many older adults.
The study
involved two sets of 15 healthy adults from age 60 to 89. One group
participated in the training. The second group served as the control,
taking the memory tests but not the visual perception training. No
participants had dementia, but the group showed a range of mental
fitness typical of an aging population. The average age was 72. Most
were college educated, middle class people.
People in both
groups were given a baseline working memory test consisting of watching
dots move across the computer screen, followed by a short delay and then
re-testing to see if they remembered exactly in which direction the dots
had moved. The memory test was given to both groups again after the
experimental group had participated in ten hours of visual perception
training. This training challenged players to discriminate between
different shapes of sine waves, or S-shaped patterns, moving across the
screen.
The training
program was designed so that as a participant’s skill level improved,
the task became progressively harder. The drills lasted 40 minutes, and
were given three to five times a week for three to five weeks. All
trained participants improved their ability to distinguish between the
two different moving shapes.
Scientists
measured participants’ brain activity by electroencephalography, or EEG,
during the memory tests, both before and after the visual training.
People were fitted with caps consisting of non-invasive electrodes that
measure electrical activity caused by neurons firing in the cerebral
cortex, the site of higher cognitive functions.
The research
team focused on brain activity known to be involved in processing visual
information, in a region called the visual association cortex located
near the back of the brain. Neurons at this site generate an internal
representation of what is seen, Gazzaley said. The research team found
that as peoples’ visual perception improved, activity generated by this
region decreased.
“This suggests
that the brain processed the visual input more efficiently,” Gazzaley
said. “So, we find for the first time that improved perceptual learning
transfers to improved working memory performance, and that this
improvement may well be explained by changes in neural activity. This
gives us direction for developing even better interventions to improve
brain function in older adults.”
When asked if
older adults would have to continue these repetitive drills in order to
maintain improved memory, Gazzaley says, “Well, I like to keep
physically fit. I work out almost every day, and I know that if I
stopped, I would get out of shape. Maybe it’s the same with the brain.
You’ve got to continue to work it.”
Lead author on
the paper is Anne S. Berry, a staff research associate in the UCSF
departments of neurology and physiology. Co-authors are Theodore Zanto,
PhD and Wesley Capp, PhD, both postdoctoral scientists at UCSF.
Co-authors at Posit Science Corporation are Joseph L. Hardy, PhD, Peter
Delahunt, PhD and Henry Mahncke, PhD.
UCSF is a
leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through
advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life
sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
