Lee Ilju, Kim Dohyun, Kim Sehwan, Kim Hee Jung, Chung Un Sun, Lee Jung Jae
Department of Psychology, College of Health Science, Dankook University, Cheonan, Republic of Korea.
Department of Psychiatry, Dankook University Hospital, Cheonan, Republic of Korea.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2023 Jul 26;15:1168815. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2023.1168815. eCollection 2023.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is often described as an intermediate stage of the normal cognitive decline associated with aging and dementia. There is a growing interest in various non-pharmacological interventions for MCI to delay the onset and inhibit the progressive deterioration of daily life functions. Previous studies suggest that cognitive training (CT) contributes to the restoration of working memory and that the brain-computer-interface technique can be applied to elicit a more effective treatment response. However, these techniques have certain limitations. Thus, in this preliminary study, we applied the neurofeedback paradigm during CT to increase the working memory function of patients with MCI.
Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to provide neurofeedback by measuring the changes in oxygenated hemoglobin in the prefrontal cortex. Thirteen elderly MCI patients who received CT-neurofeedback sessions four times on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) once a week were recruited as participants.
Compared with pre-intervention, the activity of the targeted brain region increased when the participants first engaged in the training; after 4 weeks of training, oxygen saturation was significantly decreased in the left dlPFC. The participants demonstrated significantly improved working memory compared with pre-intervention and decreased activity significantly correlated with improved cognitive performance.
Our results suggest that the applications for evaluating brain-computer interfaces can aid in elucidation of the subjective mental workload that may create additional or decreased task workloads due to CT.
轻度认知障碍（MCI）常被描述为与衰老和痴呆相关的正常认知衰退的中间阶段。人们对针对MCI的各种非药物干预措施越来越感兴趣，以延缓其发作并抑制日常生活功能的逐渐恶化。先前的研究表明，认知训练（CT）有助于恢复工作记忆，并且脑机接口技术可用于引发更有效的治疗反应。然而，这些技术存在一定局限性。因此，在这项初步研究中，我们在CT期间应用神经反馈范式来增强MCI患者的工作记忆功能。
通过测量前额叶皮质中氧合血红蛋白的变化，使用近红外光谱（NIRS）提供神经反馈。招募了13名老年MCI患者作为参与者，他们每周一次在左侧背外侧前额叶皮质（dlPFC）接受4次CT-神经反馈训练。
与干预前相比，参与者首次进行训练时，目标脑区的活动增加；训练4周后，左侧dlPFC的氧饱和度显著降低。与干预前相比，参与者的工作记忆有显著改善，且活动减少与认知表现改善显著相关。
我们的结果表明，评估脑机接口的应用有助于阐明由于CT可能产生额外或减少任务工作量的主观心理负荷。
