Brain Changes With Game Training in Aging

Neuroplasticity is an important process associated with memory and learning, and may be impaired in early Alzheimer's disease (AD). Video games are one potential strategy for investigating adaptive cognitive learning. Recent neuroimaging studies in healthy young adults have been able to detect brain changes associated with learning and memory from a racing video game over relatively short training periods of a couple hours. This strategy offers significant promise for characterizing the potential for neuroplasticity in patients at risk for AD including amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).

This project will apply video game training with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scanning to investigate adaptive learning, working memory and neuroplasticity as a function of aging and in patients with aMCI. A total of forty participants will be studied. Twenty subjects will undergo the video game training. Twenty subjects will be passive controls.

Specific Aims:

To characterize the microstructural brain changes after video game training in aging subjects and determine how patients with amnestic MCI (aMCI) and early AD are affected. For this study, adult participants ages 50 and older including patients with aMCI and early AD will undergo two neuroimaging sessions spaced roughly two hours apart that are bracketed around roughly 90 minutes of car racing game play. We will use diffusion-weighted imaging to detect longitudinal changes in microstructure of the hippocampus and parahippocampus. A primary objective of this study is to demonstrate that these training and imaging methods are translatable to patients with MCI. We will investigate the following two important hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1: Following car racing video game play, participants, on average, will demonstrate significant microstructural changes in hippocampal and parahippocampal brain regions measured with MRI.