Video games may improve cognitive control in older adults, according to a new study.
Published in the journal Nature, the study found an improvement in cognitive performance in healthy older adults who engaged with a specially-designed 3D video game.
In the game, developed by University of California, San Francisco researchers, players raced a car around a track. As they did so, a variety of signs appeared on the screen, the majority of which they were to ignore. However, when a specific sign appeared, they were instructed to press a button.
The researchers were surprised to find that participants between 60 and 85 years old who received just 12 hours of training on the game over a one month period performed better than 20-year-olds playing the game for the first time.
Other skills that improved were working memory and sustained attention, with the benefits lasting a full six months even after training ended.
Furthermore, the researchers say they may have identified evidence of the brain mechanism behind the improvements.
Using EEG recordings, the scientists measured midline frontal theta, or low-frequency oscillations, in the prefrontal cortex in addition to coherence in these waves between frontal and posterior regions of the brain. As the older participants grew more adept at the game, this neural network and its activity grew to resemble that of younger adults.
"We see this as evidence that the training may have improved our study participants' ability to stay in an engaged, active state for a longer period of time," Joaquin A. Anguera, the paper's first author and a post-doctoral fellow in Gazzaley's lab, said in a statement.
According to Dr. Adam Gazzaley, an associate professor of neurology, physiology and psychiatry and director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center, the study represents "a powerful example of how plastic the older brain is."