Translational Neuroscience 13 Research Article • DOI: 10.1515/tnsci-2015-0003 • Translational Neuroscience • 6 • 2015 • 13-19 * E-mail: cstough@swin.edu.au © 2015 Courtney C Walton et al., licensee De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. ONLINE COGNITIVE TRAINING IN HEALTHY OLDER ADULTS: A PRELIMINARY STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF SINGLE VERSUS MULTI-DOMAIN TRAINING 1 Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 2 Brain & Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 3 Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 4 Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom 5 School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia Courtney C Walton 1, 2 , Alexandra Kavanagh 1,3 , Luke A. Downey 1, 4 , Justine Lomas 1 , David A Camield 1, 5 , Con Stough 1 * Abstract It has been argued that cognitive training may be efective in improving cognitive performance in healthy older adults. However, inappropriate active control groups often hinder the validity of these claims. Additionally there are relatively few independent empirical studies on popular commercially available cognitive training programs. The current research extends on previous work to explore cognitive training employing a more robust control group. Twenty-eight healthy older adults (age: M = 64.18, SD = 6.9) completed either a multi-faceted online computerised cognitive training program or trained on a simple reaction time task for 20 minutes a day over a 28 day period. Both groups signiicantly improved performance in multiple measures of processing speed. Only the treatment group displayed improved performance for measures of memory accuracy. These results suggest improvements in processing speed and visual working memory may be obtained over a short period of computerized cognitive training. However, gains over this time appear only to show near transfer. The use of similar active control groups in future research are needed in order to better understand changes in cognition after cognitive training. Introduction With increasing age, declines in cognitive functioning become more pronounced [1]. With the proportion of the world’s aged population increasing, age-related cognitive decline in addition to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s have become of signiicance when considering healthcare costs and quality of life [2]. As such, developing appropriate preventative intervention strategies are important in attempting to lower the incidence of cognitive decline and dementia [3,4]. Cognitive training (CT) is an approach that has increasingly become popular over the past two decades, and provides theoretically driven skills and strategies which involve guided practice on tasks that relect speciic cognitive functions [3]. CT can be implemented through a number of diferent techniques and formats. Training can be process-based, whereby the intervention involves repetitive, drill-like training on speciic tasks. Alternatively, more strategic individualized intervention using techniques such as memory formation strategies (e.g., “Method of loci”) can be implemented. Both forms of training have been shown to be efective in numerous population groups. However, of particular interest in the healthy older adults literature is the potential for at- home computerized training due to its easy facilitation into daily routines, and commercial availability. CT is based upon the theory of cognitive reserve, which stipulates that cognitively engaging activity can lead to protection against cognitive decline in older age [5]. The principle underlying this theory is neuroplasticity; the process by which repetitive activation of brain regions leads to multiple changes in the brain at both cellular and larger network levels [6,7]. Changes in cortical density and neurophysiological responses have now reliably been shown as a result of CT [e.g., 8-10]. In healthy individuals, CT may act as a protective mechanism, delaying impairment, as a result of increased reserve [3]. The ACTIVE study was a key early project in the ield and provided evidence to suggest that in older adults cognitive training may lead to sustained improvements in the cognitive domain in which training was applied [11-13]. Subsequently, a large number of studies have now corroborated this initial inding of improvement in cognitive performance following CT in healthy older adults [for reviews see: 14-16]. The ACTIVE study however showed that improvements were limited to the domain that was trained. This is a fairly consistent inding in the literature, with the majority of studies showing transfer onto related un- practiced tasks (near transfer) but not on tasks representing untrained cognitive domains (far transfer) [17]. In a previous study from our laboratory we utilized the commercially available computer-based CT program MyBrainTrainer (MyBrainTrainer L.L.C., Los Angeles, CA, USA) to investigate the eicacy of twenty-one days of CT in healthy older adults [18]. Participants allocated to the experimental group completed twenty minutes of the online program each day, while an active control group played solitaire for an equivalent time and duration. It was found that training signiicantly improved speed of processing as measured by the “Simple Reaction Time” task on the Swinburne University Computerised Cognitive Aging Battery (SUCCAB) [19], while no improvements were found in “Complex Reaction Time” or Received 13 October 2014 accepted 23 October 2014 Keywords • Cognitive training • Processing speed • Working memory • Healthy older adults • Dementia Brought to you by | Swinburne Technical University Authenticated Download Date | 12/2/14 5:20 AM