Abstract
The efficacy of cognitive training is controversial, and research progress in the field requires an understanding of factors that promote transfer of training gains and their relationship to changes in brain activity. One such factor may be adaptive task difficulty, as adaptivity is predicted to facilitate more efficient processing by creating a prolonged mismatch between the supply of, and the demand upon, neural resources. To test this hypothesis, we measured behavioral and neural plasticity in fMRI sessions before and after 10 sessions of working memory updating (WMU) training, in which the difficulty of practiced tasks either adaptively increased in response to performance or was fixed. Adaptive training resulted in transfer to an untrained episodic memory task and activation decreases in striatum and hippocampus on a trained WMU task, and the amount of training task improvement was associated with near transfer to other WMU tasks and with hippocampal activation changes on both near and far transfer tasks. These findings suggest that cognitive training programs should incorporate adaptive task difficulty to broaden transfer of training gains and maximize efficiency of task-related brain activity.
| Language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages | 111-121 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | NeuroImage |
| Volume | 188 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1 2019 |
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Keywords
- Cognitive training
- Executive function
- fMRI
- Memory
- Plasticity
- Transfer
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neurology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Cite this
Adaptive task difficulty influences neural plasticity and transfer of training. / Flegal, Kristin E.; Ragland, John D; Ranganath, Charan.
In: NeuroImage, Vol. 188, 01.03.2019, p. 111-121.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Adaptive task difficulty influences neural plasticity and transfer of training
AU - Flegal, Kristin E.
AU - Ragland, John D
AU - Ranganath, Charan
PY - 2019/3/1
Y1 - 2019/3/1
N2 - The efficacy of cognitive training is controversial, and research progress in the field requires an understanding of factors that promote transfer of training gains and their relationship to changes in brain activity. One such factor may be adaptive task difficulty, as adaptivity is predicted to facilitate more efficient processing by creating a prolonged mismatch between the supply of, and the demand upon, neural resources. To test this hypothesis, we measured behavioral and neural plasticity in fMRI sessions before and after 10 sessions of working memory updating (WMU) training, in which the difficulty of practiced tasks either adaptively increased in response to performance or was fixed. Adaptive training resulted in transfer to an untrained episodic memory task and activation decreases in striatum and hippocampus on a trained WMU task, and the amount of training task improvement was associated with near transfer to other WMU tasks and with hippocampal activation changes on both near and far transfer tasks. These findings suggest that cognitive training programs should incorporate adaptive task difficulty to broaden transfer of training gains and maximize efficiency of task-related brain activity.
AB - The efficacy of cognitive training is controversial, and research progress in the field requires an understanding of factors that promote transfer of training gains and their relationship to changes in brain activity. One such factor may be adaptive task difficulty, as adaptivity is predicted to facilitate more efficient processing by creating a prolonged mismatch between the supply of, and the demand upon, neural resources. To test this hypothesis, we measured behavioral and neural plasticity in fMRI sessions before and after 10 sessions of working memory updating (WMU) training, in which the difficulty of practiced tasks either adaptively increased in response to performance or was fixed. Adaptive training resulted in transfer to an untrained episodic memory task and activation decreases in striatum and hippocampus on a trained WMU task, and the amount of training task improvement was associated with near transfer to other WMU tasks and with hippocampal activation changes on both near and far transfer tasks. These findings suggest that cognitive training programs should incorporate adaptive task difficulty to broaden transfer of training gains and maximize efficiency of task-related brain activity.
KW - Cognitive training
KW - Executive function
KW - fMRI
KW - Memory
KW - Plasticity
KW - Transfer
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.003
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.003
M3 - Article
VL - 188
SP - 111
EP - 121
JO - NeuroImage
T2 - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
SN - 1053-8119
ER -