Scientists Made a Video Game That Boosts Short-Term Memory in Older Adults

Video games could provide real benefits to our cognitive powers if they provided a fun way to enjoy leisure time. A musical rhythm game that teaches drumming and improves short-term memory is promising.

A group of older adults were divided into two groups, one playing a musical rhythm game for 20 minutes a day for 5 days a week and the other playing a normal word search game for 8 weeks.

The difference between the two groups was clear, as players progressed in Rhythmicity, the way it targeted visual perception andselective attention had a knock-on effect on short-term memory.

The researchers wrote that the rhythm training group showed improved short-term memory on a face recognition task, which provided important evidence that musical rhythm training can benefit performance on a non- musical task.

Rhythmicity was developed with the help of drummer Mickey Hart who was once of the Grateful Dead. As players progressed, the pace, complexity, and precision were adjusted.

The game can adapt itself to the person playing it, changing the difficulty level to push the player to improve without making it so hard that it will ruin the gaming experience.

During the recognition task, the post-training analysis was done usingEEG. The playersFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFkaFka

Theodore Zanto is a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco.

There is a very strong memory training component to this.

The researchers behind the study have been busy in this field since they developed a game called NeuroRacer, which has been shown to improve diminished mental faculties and improve working memory in older adults after just four weeks.

A recent study has shown that a game called Body-Brain Trainer can improve blood pressure, balance, and attention in elderly people. The heart rate data was fed back to the software so it could adapt to participants' fitness levels.

After four weeks of training, the virtual reality labyrinth can improve long-term memory in older adults.

These games show that there are ways to keep our mental sharpness as we get older.

All of the games have the same approach, but they use different types of activity. In all of them, we show that you can improve cognitive abilities in this population.

The research was published in a journal.