Department of Psychology, Center for Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition, University of Oslo, 0317, Oslo, Norway.
LREN, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Centre for Research in Neurosciences, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Sci Rep. 2022 May 12;12(1):7877. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-11636-4.
While immediate effects of memory-training are widely reported in young and older adults, less is known regarding training-dependent hippocampal plasticity across multiple intervention phases, and long-term maintenance of such. Here, 157 healthy young and older adults underwent a training-intervention including two 10 weeks periods of episodic-memory training, separated by two 2 weeks periods of no training. Both age groups showed improvements on a criterion task, which prevailed after 3 years. When compared to the reference condition of no training, relative increases in hippocampal volume were observed after the training across age groups, which were maintained after 10 weeks periods of no training. However, there was age-group dependent temporal variation with respect to timing of effects. Hippocampal volume of the training group did not differ from that of a passive control-group 3 years after the intervention. The young showed an immediate near-transfer effect on a word-association task. We show that training-gains on memory performance can prevail for at least 3 years. Memory training can induce increases in hippocampal volume immediately after the intervention and after months. Episodic-memory training can produce transfer effects to a non-trained memory task in young adults. However, maintained effects on hippocampal volume beyond 10 weeks are uncertain, and likely require continuous training.
虽然记忆训练的即时效应在年轻人和老年人中被广泛报道，但对于跨多个干预阶段的训练依赖性海马体可塑性以及长期维持这种可塑性的了解较少。在这里，157 名健康的年轻人和老年人接受了一项训练干预，包括两个 10 周的情节记忆训练期，中间间隔两个 2 周的无训练期。两个年龄组在一项标准任务上都有所提高，这种提高在 3 年后仍然存在。与不进行训练的参考条件相比，在整个年龄组中，在进行训练后观察到海马体体积的相对增加，并且在 10 周的无训练期后仍然保持。然而，关于效应的时间变化，存在与年龄组相关的时间变化。干预 3 年后，训练组的海马体体积与被动对照组没有差异。年轻人在单词联想任务上表现出即时的近迁移效应。我们表明，记忆训练的收益至少可以持续 3 年。记忆训练可以在干预后立即以及几个月后增加海马体体积。情节记忆训练可以在年轻人中产生对未训练的记忆任务的转移效应。然而，10 周后海马体体积的持续效应尚不确定，可能需要持续训练。
