Effectiveness of Computerized Cognitive Training in the Elderly With Cognitive Impairment

Computerized cognitive training has the advantage of easy accessibility for community-dwelling elderly. It can be much cheaper than traditional neuropsychological training methods, which require trained neuropsychologists. Furthermore, it may be more fun and easier to be optimized to an individual patients' cognitive status than other traditional methods.

Clinical efficacy of these kinds of cognitive training applications has been validated through several studies. A recent systematic review reported that the domains of working memory, executive function, and processing speed benefited the most by classic computerized cognitive training tasks, and that these benefits were comparable with traditional cognitive training methods. Apart from neuropsychological data, neuroimaging studies focusing on the effectiveness of computerized cognitive training are scant.

There have been no previous studies investigating the possible neural substrates of computerized cognitive training using multimodal neuroimaging modalities simultaneously. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effectiveness of computerized cognitive training and corresponding neural substrates in subjects with mild cognitive impairment, subjective memory impairment, and normal controls through a multimodal approach.

Inclusion criteria

• Ages >50 to ≤70
• Years of education ≥ 6 years
• No physical barrier preventing the dominant hand from using the computer mouse

Exclusion criteria

• Subjects who had any structural lesions or psychiatric disorders that explained the memory deficits
• Subjects had to be able to undergo pre- and post-training evaluations such as electroencephalography (EEG), FDG-PET, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• Subjects who had scalp lesions, severe back pain, or claustrophobia that precluded pre- and post-training evaluations.