As the global population ages, research on preventing cognitive decline is increasing. Previous studies have demonstrated that brain function training overlaid with electrical stimulation helps improve cognitive performance in young people, but new research has found that the training modality does not improve cognitive performance in older adults.
Paul Dukes, one of the researchers and a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, said previous studies on young people have shown that combining cognitive training with non-invasive brain stimulation – that is, delivering a mild electric current to the scalp while the individual completes a task – can consistently improve brain function.
The latest study was conducted on 131 subjects between the ages of 60 and 75 by subjecting them to electrical stimulation supplemented with brain training and measuring the extent to which subjects completed tasks such as questionnaires before and after training to see if such training had a positive effect on cognitive abilities such as attention, judgment and memory in older adults.
The study found that over time, older subjects’ performance in completing most tasks improved with or without current stimulation. In follow-up assessments, a small percentage of subjects had improved working and situational memory skills, but this was related to their natural and genetic factors. This suggests that brain training and current stimulation essentially do little to improve cognitive performance in older adults. The study has been published in the new issue of the British journal Nature Human Behaviour.
Christina Horn, a doctoral student at the University of Queensland who participated in the study, said that what works for younger people may not necessarily work for older people, probably because of differences in the structure and function of the nervous system on both sides. Therefore, further research methods need to be improved for older adults, and individual differences need to be tested to identify the groups that would benefit most.
Author: Chen Yu Source: Xinhua
