Video game training enhances cognitive control in older adults

Abstract

Training with a multitasking video game is shown to improve cognitive control abilities that decline with age, revealing the plasticity of the ageing brain; these behavioural improvements were accompanied by underlying neural changes that predicted the training-induced boost in sustained attention and enhanced multitasking performance 6 months later. Our ability to multitask and our capacity for cognitive control decline linearly as we age. A new study shows that cognitive training can help repair this decline. In older adults aged between 60 and 85 who trained at home by playing NeuroRacer, a custom-designed 3D video game, both multitasking and cognitive control improved, with effects persisting for six months. The benefits of this training extended to untrained cognitive functions such as sustained attention and working memory. These findings suggest that the ageing brain may be more robustly plastic than previously thought, allowing for cognitive enhancement using appropriately designed strategies. Cognitive control is defined by a set of neural processes that allow us to interact with our complex environment in a goal-directed manner1. Humans regularly challenge these control processes when attempting to simultaneously accomplish multiple goals (multitasking), generating interference as the result of fundamental information processing limitations2. It is clear that multitasking behaviour has become ubiquitous in today’s technologically dense world3, and substantial evidence has accrued regarding multitasking difficulties and cognitive control deficits in our ageing population4. Here we show that multitasking performance, as assessed with a custom-designed three-dimensional video game (NeuroRacer), exhibits a linear age-related decline from 20 to 79 years of age. By playing an adaptive version of NeuroRacer in multitasking training mode, older adults (60 to 85 years old) reduced multitasking costs compared to both an active control group and a no-contact control group, attaining levels beyond those achieved by untrained 20-year-old participants, with gains persisting for 6 months. Furthermore, age-related deficits in neural signatures of cognitive control, as measured with electroencephalography, were remediated by multitasking training (enhanced midline frontal theta power and frontal–posterior theta coherence). Critically, this training resulted in performance benefits that extended to untrained cognitive control abilities (enhanced sustained attention and working memory), with an increase in midline frontal theta power predicting the training-induced boost in sustained attention and preservation of multitasking improvement 6 months later. These findings highlight the robust plasticity of the prefrontal cognitive control system in the ageing brain, and provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, of how a custom-designed video game can be used to assess cognitive abilities across the lifespan, evaluate underlying neural mechanisms, and serve as a powerful tool for cognitive enhancement.