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Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults

INTRODUCTION: Given rapid global population aging, developing interventions against age‐associated cognitive decline is an important medical and societal goal. We evaluated a cognitive training protocol combined with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on trained and non‐trained functions...

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Autores principales: Antonenko, Daria, Thams, Friederike, Grittner, Ulrike, Uhrich, Jessica, Glöckner, Franka, Li, Shu‐Chen, Flöel, Agnes
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8864498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35229023
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/trc2.12262
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author Antonenko, Daria
Thams, Friederike
Grittner, Ulrike
Uhrich, Jessica
Glöckner, Franka
Li, Shu‐Chen
Flöel, Agnes
author_facet Antonenko, Daria
Thams, Friederike
Grittner, Ulrike
Uhrich, Jessica
Glöckner, Franka
Li, Shu‐Chen
Flöel, Agnes
author_sort Antonenko, Daria
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Given rapid global population aging, developing interventions against age‐associated cognitive decline is an important medical and societal goal. We evaluated a cognitive training protocol combined with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on trained and non‐trained functions in non‐demented older adults. METHODS: Fifty‐six older adults (65–80 years) were randomly assigned to one of two interventional groups, using age and baseline performance as strata. Both groups performed a nine‐session cognitive training over 3 weeks with either concurrent anodal tDCS (atDCS, 1 mA, 20 minutes) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (target intervention) or sham stimulation (control intervention). Primary outcome was performance on the trained letter updating task immediately after training. Secondary outcomes included performance on other executive and memory (near and far transfer) tasks. All tasks were administered at baseline, post‐intervention, and at 1‐ and 7‐month follow‐up assessments. Prespecified analyses to investigate treatment effects were conducted using mixed‐model analyses. RESULTS: No between‐group differences emerged in the trained letter updating and Markov decision‐making tasks at post‐intervention and at follow‐up timepoints. Secondary analyses revealed group differences in one near‐transfer task: Superior n‐back task performance was observed in the tDCS group at post‐intervention and at follow‐up. No such effects were observed for the other transfer tasks. Improvements in working memory were associated with individually induced electric field strengths. DISCUSSION: Cognitive training with atDCS did not lead to superior improvement in trained task performance compared to cognitive training with sham stimulation. Thus, our results do not support the immediate benefit of tDCS‐assisted multi‐session cognitive training on the trained function. As the intervention enhanced performance in a near‐transfer working memory task, we provide exploratory evidence for effects on non‐trained working memory functions in non‐demented older adults that persist over a period of 1 month.
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spelling pubmed-88644982022-02-27 Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults Antonenko, Daria Thams, Friederike Grittner, Ulrike Uhrich, Jessica Glöckner, Franka Li, Shu‐Chen Flöel, Agnes Alzheimers Dement (N Y) Research Articles INTRODUCTION: Given rapid global population aging, developing interventions against age‐associated cognitive decline is an important medical and societal goal. We evaluated a cognitive training protocol combined with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on trained and non‐trained functions in non‐demented older adults. METHODS: Fifty‐six older adults (65–80 years) were randomly assigned to one of two interventional groups, using age and baseline performance as strata. Both groups performed a nine‐session cognitive training over 3 weeks with either concurrent anodal tDCS (atDCS, 1 mA, 20 minutes) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (target intervention) or sham stimulation (control intervention). Primary outcome was performance on the trained letter updating task immediately after training. Secondary outcomes included performance on other executive and memory (near and far transfer) tasks. All tasks were administered at baseline, post‐intervention, and at 1‐ and 7‐month follow‐up assessments. Prespecified analyses to investigate treatment effects were conducted using mixed‐model analyses. RESULTS: No between‐group differences emerged in the trained letter updating and Markov decision‐making tasks at post‐intervention and at follow‐up timepoints. Secondary analyses revealed group differences in one near‐transfer task: Superior n‐back task performance was observed in the tDCS group at post‐intervention and at follow‐up. No such effects were observed for the other transfer tasks. Improvements in working memory were associated with individually induced electric field strengths. DISCUSSION: Cognitive training with atDCS did not lead to superior improvement in trained task performance compared to cognitive training with sham stimulation. Thus, our results do not support the immediate benefit of tDCS‐assisted multi‐session cognitive training on the trained function. As the intervention enhanced performance in a near‐transfer working memory task, we provide exploratory evidence for effects on non‐trained working memory functions in non‐demented older adults that persist over a period of 1 month. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-02-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8864498/ /pubmed/35229023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/trc2.12262 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring published by Wiley Periodicals, LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Antonenko, Daria
Thams, Friederike
Grittner, Ulrike
Uhrich, Jessica
Glöckner, Franka
Li, Shu‐Chen
Flöel, Agnes
Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
title Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
title_full Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
title_fullStr Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
title_full_unstemmed Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
title_short Randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
title_sort randomized trial of cognitive training and brain stimulation in non‐demented older adults
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8864498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35229023
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/trc2.12262
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