Brain Science: Video Games, Music and Cognitive Boost for Older Adults
There is a recent paper, on a musical rhythm game in PNAS, How musical rhythm training improves short-term memory for faces, expressing that, “Adaptivity was built into Rhythmicity so that with practice, the rhythms become increasingly difficult, but if performance falters, the rhythmic demands become easier. As difficulty increases, participants subsequently accumulate more points. Difficulty of rhythms increased along three dimensions: tempo, complexity, and precision. Musical rhythm training can improve face memory by facilitating how the brain encodes and maintains memories.”
There is another paper on a closed-loop, motion-capture video game, BBT published in Nature, Integrated cognitive and physical fitness training enhances attention abilities in older adults stating that their “findings highlight the potential benefits of an integrated, cognitive-physical, closed-loop training platform as a powerful tool for both cognitive and physical enhancement in older adults.”
There are studies that have shown how physical activities are helpful to memory. There is the necessity of activity for physical and mental health because input-activity or high-efficiency sensory input translates to distributive sensory processing that becomes important to memory across functions.
Usually, physical activity through life is important for better metabolism and health, but becomes even more important for aging with factors including the thymus, telomeres, NAD+, DNA methylation, zombie cells and so on.
There are tips for healthy aging structuring for major benefits against neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and others. The mechanism of how activities benefit health remains open, though a key approach is to track the thalamus, where most sensory and motor inputs arrive into the brain.
The thalamus could be a key factor in shaping activity measures, for certain outcomes for the elderly. Though sensory and motor processing in the thalamus is made for relay elsewhere, the thalamus remains decisive in what external activities become to the brain.
Gaming is multisensory spanning with touch, auditory and vision. Touch includes motor activity to an extent, but is an opportunity for seniors, with targets on how they can further benefit their memory.
For example, the older adults could also use a neuroplasticity stylus, so that they write with the second or weaker hand to grow that function, for advantages against neurodegeneration. The advantage of gaming, like writing also, is that it is mental and physical, making it potent for memory.
Aside from music, something else to learn is also a new language, which can become a tool in boosting the memory for older adults.
The studies have shown gaming as a useful approach and could be extended in many more ways, against some costly diseases and, if possible, against the outcomes of nursing homes, for many.