Evidence Against Paired Brain Training and Stimulation for Older Adults

A University of Queensland (UQ) study in Nature Human Behavior suggests brain training combined with electrical stimulation may not improve cognition in older adults, reports Medical Xpress . UQ Professor Paul Dux said the results indicated that older adults did not enjoy the same benefits from brain training and electrical stimulation as their younger peers. The researchers looked at an extensive range of cognitive abilities and everyday functioning of 131 people, age 60 to 75. "Older participants improved their performance on most tasks over time whether they received brain training paired with stimulation or not," Dux noted. "There were some improvements in working memory and episodic memory for a small group of participants at follow-up assessments, but this came down to their aptitude for performing the training task and genetic factors." According to UQ's Kristina Horne, "The results continue to show that effective methods for younger adults do not necessarily translate to older adults, which could be due to structural and functional neural differences. More work will need to focus on optimizing research methods for older adults and testing individual differences to figure out those most likely to benefit."