Cognitive training can reduce the rate of cognitive aging: a neuroimaging cohort study

BACKGROUND: The neural mechanisms underlying the restorative effects of cognitive training on aging brains remain unclear. To address this issue, we examined the relationship between changes in spontaneous brain activity and cognitive performance that occur after cognitive training. METHODS: Participants were older adults who were part of a randomized control trial within a larger longitudinal cognitive training study. We conducted single-domain and multi-domain cognitive training in two respective intervention groups. Participants were trained for 1 h, twice a week, for 12 weeks. Cognition was assessed in all participants and magnetic resonance images were obtained at baseline and 1 year after training. To assess spontaneous fluctuations in brain activity, we acquired resting-state fMRI data. Two indices—functional entropy and time-domain entropy—were used to measure the effects of training. Functional entropy increases with aging, and indicates disruptions in functional conectivity. Time-domain entropy decreases with aging, and indicates structural alterations in the brain and blood-flow reduction. RESULTS: Seventy participants completed the study: 26 in the multi-domain cognitive training group (70.38 ± 3.30 yrs), 27 in single-domain group (70.48 ± 3.93 yrs), and 17 in a control group (68.59 ± 3.24 yrs). Functional entropy increased significantly less in the multi-domain (p = 0.047) and single-domain groups (p = 9.51 × 10(−4)) compared with the control group. In the multi-domain group, this was true in the paracentral lobule (p = 0.004, Bonferroni corrected p < 0.05). Time-domain entropy also improved with training. Compared with controls, time-domain entropy in the multi-domain group decreased less in the inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis (p = 3.59 × 10(−4)), the medial part of superior frontal gyrus (p = 1.17 × 10(−5)), and the thalamus (p = 4.72 × 10(−5)), while that in the single-domain group decreased less in the cuneus (p = 2.58 × 10(−4), Bonferroni corrected p < 0.05). Additionally, changes in regional entropy for some regions such as hippocampus significantly correlated with improvements in cognitive performance. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive training can induce plastic changes in neural functional connectivity of healthy older people, and these changes may underlie the positive effect of cognitive training. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ChiCTR-TRC-08000732 (Date of registration: 5th November, 2008). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12877-016-0194-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.