Cognitive and Neural Plasticity in Older Adults' Prospective Memory Following Training on the Virtual Week Computer Game

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM)-the ability to remember and successfully execute our intentions and planned activities-is critical for functional independence and declines with age, yet few studies have attempted to train PM in older adults. We developed a PM training program using the Virtual Week computer game. Trained participants played the game in 12, 1-h sessions over 1 month. Measures of neuropsychological functions, lab-based PM, event-related potentials (ERPs) during performance on a lab-based PM task, instrumental activities of daily living, and real-world PM were assessed before and after training. Performance was compared to both no-contact and active (music training) control groups. PM on the Virtual Week game dramatically improved following training relative to controls, suggesting PM plasticity is preserved in older adults. Relative to control participants, training did not produce reliable transfer to laboratory-based tasks, but was associated with a reduction of an ERP component (sustained negativity over occipito-parietal cortex) associated with processing PM cues, indicative of more automatic PM retrieval. Most importantly, training produced far transfer to real-world outcomes including improvements in performance on real-world PM and activities of daily living. Real-world gains were not observed in either control group. Our findings demonstrate that short-term training with the Virtual Week game produces cognitive and neural plasticity that may result in real-world benefits to supporting functional independence in older adulthood.

Home-Based, Self-Administered Dyadic Cognitive Training for Healthy Older Adults: Feasibility Study

“…The participants performed better than the control groups on the trained and untrained prospective memory tasks; however, there were no group differences on other cognitive measures (effect sizes not reported; Rose et al, 2015). The intervention group also performed significantly better on an objective measure of IADLs compared to both control groups.…”

“…The intervention group was engaged in prospective memory training computer game for 12 1 hour-long sessions over 1 month. Active control group was administered classroom music training with a teacher, and assessment-only control group did not have any intervention sessions (Rose et al, 2015).…”

“…No EEG differences were found in other brain regions. Despite the small sample size, this study is important as it incorporates performance-based assessment of IADLs with the use of daily objects and tasks, as well as brain imaging data (Rose et al, 2015).…”

“…Existing studies evaluated the effectiveness of single-domain (Cheng et al, 2012;Rose et al, 2015;Willis et al, 2006) and multi-domain interventions (Cheng et al, 2012;Corbett et al, 2015;Shatil, 2013) administered individually (Corbett et al, 2015;Mozolic et al, 2009;Shatil, 2013;Rose et al, 2015;Smith et al, 2009), in groups (Cheng et al, 2012;Willis et al, 2006), or in combined individual/group format (Tranter & Koutstaal, 2008). The setting included onsite programs (Cheng et al, 2012;Mozolic et al, 2009;Rose et al, 2015;Shatil, 2013), home-based interventions (Corbett et al, 2015;Smith et al, 2009), or a combination of both (Tranter & Koutstaal, 2008).…”

“…Most of the reviewed RCTs were marked by methodological issues, such as lack of a placebo control group Cheng et al, 2012) and small sample size (Mozolic et al, 2011;Rose et al, 2015;Shatil, 2013;Tranter & Koutstaal, 2008). Only one study included neuroimaging data (Rose et al, 2015), two included a performancebased measure of IADLs (Rose et al, 2015;Willis et al, 2006), and none were replicated.…”