Verbal Training Induces Enhanced Functional Connectivity in Japanese Healthy Elderly Population.

Fan-Pei Gloria Yang,Chih-Hsuan Liu,Shumei Murakami,Toshiharu Nakai,Tzu-Yu Liu

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.786853

Fan-Pei Gloria Yang, Chih-Hsuan Liu + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.786853

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Abstract

This study employs fMRI to examine the neural substrates of response to cognitive training in healthy old adults. Twenty Japanese healthy elders participated in a 4-week program and practiced a verbal articulation task on a daily basis. Functional connectivity analysis revealed that in comparison to age- and education-matched controls, elders who received the cognitive training demonstrated increased connectivity in the frontotemporal regions related with language and memory functions and showed significant correlations between the behavioral change in a linguistic task and connectivity in regions for goal-oriented persistence and lexical processing. The increased hippocampal connectivity was consistent with previous research showing efficacious memory improvement and change in hippocampal functioning. Moreover, the increased intra-network connectivity following cognitive training suggested an improved neural differentiation, in contrast to the inter-network activation pattern typical in the aging brain. This research not only validates the relationship of functional change in the frontal and temporal lobes to age-associated cognitive decline but also shows promise in turning neural change toward the right direction by cognitive training.

Highlights

With the increasing aging population around the globe and the lack in effective treatment in dementia, measures to intervene cognitive decline are urgently needed
This study focuses on the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) connectivity, similar to those in the review of Functional connectivity (FC) approaches (Ferreira and Busatto, 2013), using the inter-regional correlational approach
The treatment effect was investigated with the sentence-reading task, neuropsychological battery, and questionnaire data by the

Summary

Introduction

With the increasing aging population around the globe and the lack in effective treatment in dementia, measures to intervene cognitive decline are urgently needed. Cognitive training is one of the strategies that has shown some promise in the retention of cognitive functions for healthy elders and elders at risk for mild cognitive impairments (MCI) (Ball et al, 2002; Belleville, 2008; Valenzuela and Sachdev, 2009; Mowszowski et al, 2010; Rosen et al, 2011). Studies have suggested that enriching mental activities could moderate the deterioration process as healthy elders participating in social and cognitive activities were less likely to develop MCI and eventually converted to dementia (Wilson et al, 2002; Verghese et al, 2003, 2006; Prince et al, 2013). Were effective for maintaining or improving cognitive functions in older adults regardless of their cognitive status (Sanjuan et al, 2020). This raises the question of which type of language-based training is effective on older adults who are cognitively normal.

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