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Adaptive working memory training does not produce transfer effects in cognition and neuroimaging

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Wu,  Qiong
Neuroimaging Center (TUM-NIC), TU Munich, Germany;
Department of Neuroradiology, School of Medicine, TU Munich, Germany;
Institute of Medical Psychology, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Germany;
Department Neurology, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Ripp, I., Emch, M., Wu, Q., Lizarraga, A., Udale, R., von Bastian, C. C., et al. (2022). Adaptive working memory training does not produce transfer effects in cognition and neuroimaging. Translational Psychiatry, 12(1): 512. doi:10.1038/s41398-022-02272-7.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000B-FE22-1
Abstract
Despite growing interest in cognitive interventions from academia and industry, it remains unclear if working memory (WM) training, one of the most popular cognitive interventions, produces transfer effects. Transfer effects are training-induced gains in performance in untrained cognitive tasks, while practice effects are improvements in trained task. The goal of this study was to evaluate potential transfer effects by comprehensive cognitive testing and neuroimaging. In this prospective, randomized-controlled, and single-blind study, we administered an 8-week n-back training to 55 healthy middle-aged (50–64 years) participants. State-of-the-art multimodal neuroimaging was used to examine potential anatomic and functional changes. Relative to control subjects, who performed non-adaptive WM training, no near or far transfer effects were detected in experimental subjects, who performed adaptive WM training. Equivalently, no training-related changes were observed in white matter integrity, amplitude of low frequency fluctuations, glucose metabolism, functional and metabolic connectivity. Exploratory within-group comparisons revealed some gains in transfer tasks, which, however, cannot be attributed to an increased WM capacity. In conclusion, WM training produces transfer effects neither at the cognitive level nor in terms of neural structure or function. These results speak against a common view that training-related gains reflect an increase in underlying WM capacity. Instead, the presently observed practice effects may be a result of optimized task processing strategies, which do not necessarily engage neural plasticity.