Charging for the brain is much more useful than it was thought

 This statement contradicts the well-established psychological axiom that training one brain ability cannot improve other mental abilities. If this discovery receives further evidence, it may form the basis of new methods of treatment and prevention of cognitive impairment and age-associated memory impairment.

The results of research conducted over decades indicate that cross-training of brain functions is ineffective, i.e. improving one of the cognitive functions does not improve the others. For example, training in memorizing long combinations of numbers does not improve the ability to memorize long combinations of letters.

The authors claim that they were able to refute this belief for the first time, and plan to conduct additional studies on groups of elderly people with age-related cognitive impairment and children with attention deficit disorder.

During the study, the researchers asked 35 volunteers to perform complex tasks for memorization and conducted a standard intelligence test for them before training and 8, 12, 17 and 19 days after it. 35 individuals of the control group were tested at the same time points, but without training.

The memorization tasks were different from those used in the earlier work. Instead of sequentially memorizing objects, participants simultaneously perceived sound and visual stimuli – consonant sounds heard through headphones and small squares that light up in various places on the computer screen. They had to determine whether the current stimuli (the sound and the location of the square) were identical to the stimuli presented n steps back.

In each new round, the value of n increased or decreased by one, depending on whether the person coped well or poorly with the task. The authors claim that the regime they developed, called n-return (n-back), stimulates the executive mechanisms of the brain, including suppressing the registration of minor parameters, controlling the efficiency of functioning, allowing two tasks to be performed simultaneously and updating memories, as well as suppressing the development of strategies and automatic response.

Experts in the field of cognitive functions were very interested in the published results. At the same time, many express some skepticism, including about the lack of description in the published article of such important details as the principles of selection of test participants and the correspondence of the experimental and control groups. However, they do not deny that if the findings are confirmed in further studies, they will largely change views on cognitive functions and brain function.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Scientific American

08.05.2008