Brains of those with MCI still flexible and trainable

April, 2011

A small study demonstrates that mild cognitive impairment doesn’t preclude retraining the brain to find new ways to perform cognitive tasks.

A training program designed to help older adults with MCI develop memory strategies has found that their brains were still sufficiently flexible to learn new ways to compensate for impairment in some brain regions. The study involved 30 older adults, of whom 15 had MCI. Participants’ brains were scanned 6 weeks prior to memory training, one week prior to training and one week after training.

Before training, those with MCI showed less activity in brain regions associated with memory. After training they showed increased activation in these areas as well as in areas associated with language processing, spatial and object memory and skill learning. In particular, new activity in the right inferior parietal gyrus was associated with improvement on a memory task.

The findings demonstrate that even once diagnosed with MCI (a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease), brains can still be ‘rewired’ to use undamaged brain regions for tasks customarily done by now-damaged regions.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/uom-sar032311.php

Reference:

[2205] Belleville, S., Clément F., Mellah S., Gilbert B., Fontaine F., & Gauthier S.
(2011). Training-related brain plasticity in subjects at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Brain.

seniors

MCI

Health & age-related problems

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