Navigating a Virtual World Helped Older Adults' Memory

A proof-of-concept study published in Scientific Reports suggests virtual reality (VR) might help older people remember facts and events based on specific details, reports Scientific American . The study involved 42 healthy older adults from the San Francisco Bay Area, half of whom spent 12 hours over four weeks playing a VR game called Labyrinth in which they walked in place, completing errands in virtual neighborhoods. The control half used tablets to play games that did not require navigating or recalling details. After 15 sessions, the control group performed approximately the same as before on a long-term memory test based on picking out objects they had viewed about 60 minutes earlier — while the Labyrinth cohort's scores rose, and they were less frequently fooled by objects that resembled ones they had seen. The University of California, San Francisco's Peter Wais said these improvements "brought them back up to the level of another group of younger adults who did the same memory tests." The VR game's designers think the game likely stimulates the hippocampus, a brain region key to long-term memory. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Meredith Thompson said following this study, "it would be great to actually follow people over time and see what this type of game does for long-term memory."