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Restrictive means to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have not only imposed broad challenges on mental health but might also affect cognitive health. Here we asked how restriction-related changes influence cognitive performance and how age, perceived loneliness, depressiveness and affectedness by restrictions contribute to these effects. 51 Germans completed three assessments of an online based study during the first lockdown in Germany (April 2020), a month later, and during the beginning of the second lockdown (November 2020). Participants completed nine online cognitive tasks of the MyBrainTraining and online questionnaires about their perceived strain and impact on lifestyle factors by the situation (affectedness), perceived loneliness, depressiveness as well as subjective cognitive performance. The results suggested a possible negative impact of depressiveness and affectedness on objective cognitive performance within the course of the lockdown. The younger the participants, the more pronounced these effects were. Loneliness and depressiveness moreover contributed to a worse evaluation of subjective cognition. In addition, especially younger individuals reported increased distress. As important educational and social input has partly been scarce during this pandemic and mental health problems have increased, future research should also assess cognitive long-term consequences.

[Introduction] Cholinesterase inhibitors can enhance cognitive functions in healthy elderly and delay cognitive decline in patients with Alzheimer`s disease (AD). However, not everyone benefits from this treatment (non-responders). Current studies show clinical meaningful improvements only in one third of AD patients treated with cholinesterase inhibitors., [Methods] Here we investigate structural magnetic resonance imaging of the basal forebrain cholinergic system volume (BFvol) as a potential predictor of cognitive response to a single dose of galantamine in healthy adults (n = 18; 59 to 75 years)., [Results] We observed that the cognitive response to galantamine, more specifically the attention-dependent filtering performance in a delayed match-to-sample working memory task, correlated with BFvol: Only participants with high BFvol showed a significant positive effect of galantamine on the ability to filter out distracting information during the working memory encoding process., [Discussion] Future studies need to assess whether BFvol may serve as a predictor of the galantamine response in AD patients, too., MJG is supported by the “Miguel Servet” program [CP19/00031] of the Spanish Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII-FEDER). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

Decision-making is an important everyday function that deteriorates during normal aging. Here, we asked whether value-based decision-making can be improved in the elderly by cognitive training. We compared the effects of two training regimens on the performance in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), a real-life decision-making simulation task. Elderly participants (age 62&ndash, 75 years) were randomized into three matched groups. The filter training (FT) group performed a selective attention task and the memory training (MT) group performed a memory storage task on five consecutive days. The control group (CG) did not perform another task besides the IGT. Only the FT group showed an improvement in IGT performance over the five days&mdash, the overall gain rose and the prominent deck B phenomenon decreased. The latter refers to the selection of cards associated with high gains and rare losses, which are nevertheless a disadvantageous choice as the frequent losses lead to a negative net outcome. As the deck B phenomenon has been associated with impaired cognitive abilities in aging, the positive effect of FT here is of special importance. In sum, attention training seems superior in improving decision-making in the elderly.

Recent reviews have shown that acute exercise can improve cognitive functions, especially executive functions. However, a closer look at the included studies revealed a wide inter-individual variability in the effects of exercise on cognition. Therefore, thirty-nine healthy adults (age: 19&ndash, 30 years) were analyzed in a randomized, controlled cross-over study with two exercise groups (n = 13 each) and a sedentary control group (n = 13). The exercise conditions included moderate (30 min at 40&ndash, 59% VO2max) and high intensity interval (five &times, 2 min at 90% VO2max with 3 min active recovery at 40% VO2max) treadmill exercise. The main outcome assessed was cognitive performance (attention, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility) and underlying inter-individual variability in young adults. On the group level no significant group or group &times, time interaction effects were observed. Using a median split, we found significant differences between low and high cognitive performers regarding cognitive function following moderate and high intensity interval treadmill exercise. Furthermore, using a pre-determined threshold we could identify responders and non-responders to acute exercise. Therefore, future research should consider individual performance requirements.

In the context of the demographically induced increase in the prevalence of dementia and the simultaneous lack of causal pharmacological therapies, preventive approaches are gaining in importance. By reducing risk factors and with measures which induce neuroplasticity successful aging can be supported. This article summarizes the current developments in preventing dementia by modification of life style factors. The main focus lies on the impact of cognitive and physical activity on neuroprotection. A promising approach combines both activities within a dance training program. Further studies that meet the demanding criteria of a randomized clinical trial are urgently needed.

Memory training (MT) in older adults with memory deficits often leads to frustration and, therefore, is usually not recommended. Here, we pursued an alternative approach and looked for transfer effects of 1-week attentional filter training (FT) on working memory performance and its neuronal correlates in young healthy humans. The FT effects were compared with pure MT, which lacked the necessity to filter out irrelevant information. Before and after training, all participants performed an fMRI experiment that included a combined task in which stimuli had to be both filtered based on color and stored in memory. We found that training induced processing changes by biasing either filtering or storage. FT induced larger transfer effects on the untrained cognitive function than MT. FT increased neuronal activity in frontal parts of the neuronal gatekeeper network, which is proposed to hinder irrelevant information from being unnecessarily stored in memory. MT decreased neuronal activity in the BG part of the gatekeeper network but enhanced activity in the parietal storage node. We take these findings as evidence that FT renders working memory more efficient by strengthening the BG–prefrontal gatekeeper network. MT, on the other hand, simply stimulates storage of any kind of information. These findings illustrate a tight connection between working memory and attention, and they may open up new avenues for ameliorating memory deficits in patients with cognitive impairments.

Age-related degenerations in brain structure are associated with balance disturbances and cognitive impairments. However, neuroplasticity is known to be preserved throughout lifespan and physical training studies with seniors could reveal volume increases in the hippocampus (HC), a region crucial for memory consolidation, learning and navigation in space, which were related to improvements in aerobic fitness. Moreover, a positive correlation between left HC volume and balance performance was observed. Dancing seems a promising intervention for both improving balance and brain structure in the elderly. It combines aerobic fitness, sensorimotor skills and cognitive demands while at the same time the risk of injuries is low. Hence, the present investigation compared the effects of an 18-month dancing intervention and traditional health fitness training on volumes of hippocampal subfields and balance abilities. Before and after intervention, balance was evaluated using the Sensory Organization Test (SOT) and HC volumes were derived from magnetic resonance images (3T, MP-RAGE). Fourteen members of the dance (67.21 ± 3.78 years, 7 females), and 12 members of the fitness group (68.67 ± 2.57 years, 5 females) completed the whole study. Both groups revealed hippocampal volume increases mainly in the left HC (CA1, CA2, subiculum). The dancers showed additional increases in the left dentate gyrus (DG) and the right subiculum. Moreover, only the dancers achieved a significant increase in the balance composite score. Hence, dancing constitutes a promising candidate in counteracting the age-related decline in physical and mental abilities.

Decision-making has a high practical relevance for daily performance. Its relation to other cognitive abilities such as executive control and memory is not fully understood. Here we asked whether training of either attentional filtering or memory storage would influence decision-making as indexed by repetitive assessments of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The IGT was developed to assess and simulate real-life decision-making (Bechara et al., 2005). In this task, participants gain or lose money by developing advantageous or disadvantageous decision strategies. On five consecutive days we trained 29 healthy young adults (20-30 years) either in working memory storage or attentional filtering and measured their IGT scores after each training session. During memory training (MT) subjects performed a computerized delayed match-to-sample task where two displays of bars were presented in succession. During filter training (FT) participants had to indicate whether two simultaneously presented displays of bars matched or not. Whereas in MT the relevant target stimuli stood alone, in FT the targets were embedded within irrelevant distractors (bars in a different color). All subjects within each group improved their performance in the trained cognitive task. For the IGT, we observed an increase over time in the amount of money gained in the FT group only. Decision-making seems to be influenced more by training to filter out irrelevant distractors than by training to store items in working memory. Selective attention could be responsible for the previously noted relationship between IGT performance and working memory and is therefore more important for enhancing efficiency in decision-making.

From animal research, it is known that combining physical activity with sensory enrichment has stronger and longer-lasting effects on the brain than either treatment alone. For humans dancing has been suggested to be analogous to such combined training. Here we assessed whether a newly designed dance training program that stresses the constant learning of new movement patterns is superior in terms of neuroplasticity to conventional fitness activities with repetitive exercises and whether extending the training duration has additional benefits. Twenty-two healthy seniors (63–80 years) who had been randomly assigned to either a dance or a sport group completed the entire 18-month study. MRI, BDNF and neuropsychological tests were performed at baseline and after 6 and 18 months of intervention. After 6 months, we found a significant increase in gray matter volume in the left precentral gyrus in the dancers compared to controls. This neuroplasticity effect may have been mediated by the increased BDNF plasma levels observed in the dancers. Regarding cognitive measures, both groups showed significant improvements in attention after 6 months and in verbal memory after 18 months. In addition, volume increases in the parahippocampal region were observed in the dancers after 18 months. The results of our study suggest that participating in a long-term dance program that requires constant cognitive and motor learning is superior to engaging in repetitive physical exercises in inducing neuroplasticity in the brains of seniors. Therefore, dance is highly promising in its potential to counteract age-related gray matter decline.