Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 23, 2025
Working Memory Training for Older Participants: A Control Group Training Regimen and Initial Intellectual Functioning Assessment
Published on: September 20, 2020
Targeting autonomic flexibility to enhance cognitive training outcomes in older adults with mild cognitive
Feng V Lin1,2,3,4, Kathi Heffner5,6,7, Richard Gevirtz8
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, USA.
Importance:
Cognitive training with components that can further enhance the transferred and long-term effects and slow the progress of dementia is needed for preventing dementia.
Objective:
The goal of the study is to test whether improving autonomic nervous system (ANS) flexibility via a resonance frequency breathing (RFB) training will strengthen the effects of a visual speed of processing (VSOP) cognitive training on cognitive and brain function, and slow the progress of dementia in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Design:
Stage II double-blinded randomized controlled trial. The study was prospectively registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, with registration approved on 21 August 2020 (No. NCT04522791).
Setting:
Study-related appointments will be conducted on-site at University of Rochester Medical Center locations. Data collection will be conducted from August 2020 to February 2025.
Participants:
Older adults with MCI (n = 114) will be randomly assigned to an 8-week combined intervention (RFB+VSOP), VSOP with guided imagery relaxation (IR) control, and a IR-only control, with periodical booster training sessions at follow-ups. Mechanistic and distal outcomes include ANS flexibility, measured by heart rate variability, and multiple markers of dementia progress. Data will be collected across a 14-month period.
Discussion:
This will be among the first RCTs to examine in older persons with MCI a novel, combined intervention targeting ANS flexibility, an important contributor to overall environmental adaptation, with an ultimate goal for slowing neurodegeneration.
Trial Registration:
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04522791 . Registered on 21 August 2020 Protocol version: STUDY00004727; IRB protocol version 2, approved on 30 July 2020.
