Enhancement of cognitive and neural functions through complex reasoning training: evidence from normal and clinical populations

Sandra B Chapman, Raksha A Mudar, Sandra B Chapman, Raksha A Mudar

Abstract

Public awareness of cognitive health is fairly recent compared to physical health. Growing evidence suggests that cognitive training offers promise in augmenting cognitive brain performance in normal and clinical populations. Targeting higher-order cognitive functions, such as reasoning in particular, may promote generalized cognitive changes necessary for supporting the complexities of daily life. This data-driven perspective highlights cognitive and brain changes measured in randomized clinical trials that trained gist reasoning strategies in populations ranging from teenagers to healthy older adults, individuals with brain injury to those at-risk for Alzheimer's disease. The evidence presented across studies support the potential for Gist reasoning training to strengthen cognitive performance in trained and untrained domains and to engage more efficient communication across widespread neural networks that support higher-order cognition. The meaningful benefits of Gist training provide compelling motivation to examine optimal dose for sustained benefits as well as to explore additive benefits of meditation, physical exercise, and/or improved sleep in future studies.

Keywords: brain plasticity; cognition; cognitive training; gist reasoning; neural.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
This figure illustrates the convergence of neural plasticity findings in the cognitive training vs. control group across cerebral blood flow, functional connectivity, and structural DTI changes implicating functional brain changes more frequent and rapid than structural plasticity comparing changes at T2 and T3 to baseline T1 measures. (A) Results of CBF voxel-based comparison superimposed on an average CBF map of all participants for linear and quadratic interaction contrasts. (B) The average functional connectivity maps (i.e., DMN and CEN) of the cognitive training group are overlaid on their average T1-weighted image. (C) Mean increase in fcMRI z-scores (left column) and mean change in absolute CBF (right column) are shown for DMN and CEN across time periods. (D) A representative participant's uncinate fasciculus (green) is overlaid on his fractional anisotropy map from DTI (Chapman et al., 2013).

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