Spatial navigation training protects the hippocampus against age-related changes during early and late adulthood

NEUROBIOLOGY OF AGING

卷:33

Article

Lovden, Martin^1,2,3,4  Schaefer, Sabine¹  Noack, Hannes¹  Bodammer, Nils Christian¹  Kuehn, Simone^5,6  Heinze, Hans-Jochen^7,8  Duezel, Emrah^7,8,9  Baeckman, Lars^1,3,4  Lindenberger, Ulman¹ 

[1] Max Planck Inst Human Dev, Ctr Lifespan Psychol, D-14195 Berlin, Germany

[2] Lund Univ, Dept Psychol, Lund, Sweden

[3] Karolinska Inst, Aging Res Ctr, Stockholm, Sweden

[4] Stockholm Univ, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden

[5] Max Planck Inst Human Cognit & Brain Sci, Dept Psychol, Leipzig, Germany

[6] Univ Ghent, Dept Expt Psychol, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

[7] Univ Magdeburg, Dept Neurol, D-39106 Magdeburg, Germany

[8] DZNE German Ctr Neurodegenerat Disorders, Magdeburg, Germany

[9] UCL, Inst Cognit Neurosci, London, England

关键词: Cognitive aging;    Cognitive training;    Hippocampus;    Plasticity;    Spatial navigation;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2011.02.013

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

It is unknown whether lifestyle, including mental stimulation, and appropriate training interventions, may directly improve spatial navigation performance and its underlying neural substrates. Here we report that healthy younger and older men performing a cognitively demanding spatial navigation task every other day over 4 months display navigation- related gains in performance and stable hippocampal volumes that were maintained 4 months after termination of training. In contrast, control groups displayed volume decrements consistent with longitudinal estimates of age-related decline. Hippocampal barrier density, as indicated by mean diffusivity estimated from diffusion tensor imaging, showed a quadratic shape of increased density after training followed by a return to baseline in the right hippocampus, but declined in the control groups and in the left hippocampus. We conclude that sustained experiential demands on spatial ability protect hippocampal integrity against age-related decline. These results provide the first longitudinal evidence indicating that spatial navigation experience modifies hippocampal volumes in humans, and confirm epidemiological results suggesting that mental stimulation may have direct effects on neural integrity. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free