Online games and brain stimulation offers hope for combating working memory decline

Collaborative research between Birmingham, Trento in Italy and Dalhousie in Canada universities investigated how to boost so-called ‘working memory’ among a sample of adults aged 55 to 76.

Working memory holds limited amounts of information temporarily and is essential to aid decision making and reasoning for executing tasks.  As such it performs a vital role in a person’s ability to negotiate their environment.

While ageing produces a decline, its effects are more severe when individuals are coping with conditions such as dementia, stroke and Parkinson’s disease.

The researchers devised a technology labelled COGNISANT that paired specific online therapeutic games with simultaneous non-invasive brain stimulation in the form of a mobile wireless device that delivering a 2milliAmpèretranscranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). 

Writing in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, they reported that subjects’ working memory capacity (WMC) improved significantly using the online therapy. 

This applied to the sub-group of patients who received no tDCS and regardless of age. And it demonstrated particular improvement in those who had low WMC scores. 

Respondents were split into two groups performing online games for 20 minutes day, for five days, with both one groups wearing the tDCS device, but only one group receiving that treatment.  Baseline WMC was measured before the study and two days after completion. 

The paper was senior authored by biomedical engineer Dr Sara Assecondi, formerly at Birmingham but now at Trento who commented on its application for off-site treatment: “Approaches used for hospital rehabilitation are difficult to translate to the home setting, but our approach uses online tools, and delivers brain stimulation via a device that can be used anywhere, with the dose determined remotely by the physician.” 

Her former Birmingham colleague and collaborator cognitive neuroscientist Professor Kim Shapiro emphasised that such approaches, in combination with regular physical exercise, could stem memory decline and provide a higher quality of life

The therapeutic games employed were developed by Dalhousie neuropsychologist Professor Gail Eskes.  

Work is now underway with Birmingham’s  and Dalhousie’s technology transfer to seek commercial partners to take the technology to market.  

The researchers’ previous study looked at applying technology and therapy to help young people with low WMC improve their performance.  

Assecondi added: “The effects seen in both studies were strong, with the first study indicating that the combination of stimulation and strategy instruction can improve WM performance in younger adults, and the second study showing that strategy use may be facilitated by stimulation in older participants.”