It is hypothesized that the type of learning that successful trainees underwent involves building relationships between environmental landmarks to create a detailed internal representation of the environment or a cognitive map, a process that relies centrally on the hippocampus. It was found that people who successfully completed the training program displayed increased grey matter in the hippocampus at post-training while people who were not successful, displayed no significant increase within this neural structure. In a subsequent study, this relationship was shown to be causal by using a longitudinal design that followed a sample of potential London taxi drivers who underwent the multi-year training program to acquire “the knowledge”. It was shown that London Taxi drivers displayed more grey matter in the posterior hippocampus compared to a matched control group. The neuroplastic nature of the hippocampus was first reported in humans by researchers who examined London Taxi drivers who underwent rigorous spatial memory training to learn the city’s layout and routes (commonly referred to as “the knowledge”). The impact of learning on the hippocampal system is only beginning to be better understood. Lower grey matter in the hippocampus is a significant biomarker for numerous neurological and psychiatric disorders across people’s lifespan including disorders that specifically impact older adults such as Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Behavioural and supporting data are provided in the supplementary methods section.įunding: This study was supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research,, to Sylvie Belleville Natural science and engineering research council of Canada (436140-2013) to Greg L West. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Received: AugAccepted: OctoPublished: December 6, 2017Ĭopyright: © 2017 West et al. PLoS ONE 12(12):Įditor: Etsuro Ito, Waseda University, JAPAN (2017) Playing Super Mario 64 increases hippocampal grey matter in older adults. In contrast, the CON group displayed significant grey matter loss in the hippocampus, cerebellum and the DLPFC.Ĭitation: West GL, Zendel BR, Konishi K, Benady-Chorney J, Bohbot VD, Peretz I, et al. Active control MUS training did, however, lead to a within-subject increase in the DLPFC, while both the VID and MUS training produced growth in the cerebellum. After training, a within-subject increase in grey matter within the hippocampus was significant only in the VID training group, replicating results observed in younger adults. Additionally, an active control group took a series of self-directed, computerized music (piano) lessons (MUS n = 12), while a no-contact control group did not engage in any intervention (CON n = 13). The video game experimental group (VID n = 8) engaged in a 3D-platform video game training over a period of 6 months. Older adults who were 55 to 75 years of age were randomized into three groups. In the current study, we tested the impact of 3D-platform video game training (i.e., Super Mario 64) on grey matter in the hippocampus, cerebellum, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of older adults. Playing 3D-platform video games has previously been shown to promote grey matter in the hippocampus in younger adults. Maintaining grey matter within the hippocampus is important for healthy cognition.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |