Research: Enjoying board video games like Chess, Mahjong, Go, helps sluggish cognitive decline as we age (however with clear variations in neurobiology and improved perform)

Play­ing Board Games May Slow Cog­ni­tive Decline, Improve QoL (Med­scape):

Play­ing chess or oth­er board video games slows cog­ni­tive decline and improves qual­i­ty of life in previous­er sufferers, outcomes of a brand new sys­tem­at­ic assessment counsel.

… After search­ing the pub­lished lit­er­a­ture, Pozzi and his col­leagues choose­ed 15 stud­ies for the assessment. The stud­ies assessed the influence of board video games on previous­er indi­vid­u­als liable to, or with cog­ni­tive impair­ment, or these with gentle cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI) at any age.

… Play­ing Go was linked with improved work­ing mem­o­ry, as mea­sured by the Path Mak­ing Take a look at‑A. Those that performed Mahjong report­ed improved exec­u­tive func­tion­ing and a tem­po­rary lower in depres­sive symp­toms. And chess play­ers report­ed improved qual­i­ty of life on the World Well being Orga­ni­za­tion Qual­i­ty of Life scale from play­ing chess (P < .00001).

… The outcomes additionally appeared to sug­gest that Go and chess have dif­fer­ent bio­log­i­cal results. “For examination­ple, Go elevated [brain-derived neu­rotroph­ic fac­tor] (BDNF) lev­els and metab­o­lism in areas key for cog­ni­tion just like the mid­dle tem­po­ral gyrus,” Pozzi mentioned.

The Research:

Can Tra­di­tion­al Board Games Pre­vent or Slow Down Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment? A Sys­tem­at­ic Review and Meta-Analy­sis (Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease). From the Summary:

• Again­floor: Tra­di­tion­al board video games can entail sig­nif­i­cant expertise encom­move­ing sev­er­al cog­ni­tive func­tions throughout dif­fer­ent domains. There­fore, they might poten­tial­ly rep­re­despatched effec­tive cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions within the growing older pop­u­la­tion with or with­out Alzheimer’s dis­ease or oth­er sorts of dementia.
• Objec­tive: We aimed toward ver­i­fy­ing the hypoth­e­sis that tra­di­tion­al board video games can pre­vent or decelerate cog­ni­tive decline, via a sys­tem­at­ic assessment on tra­di­tion­al board video games and dementia.
• Outcomes: Board video games improved males­tal func­tion, as mea­sured by Mon­tre­al Cog­ni­tive Assess­ment (p = 0.003) and Mini-Males­tal State Examination­i­na­tion (p = 0.02). Ska and Go improved Path Mak­ing Take a look at ‑A, whereas Mahjong improved exec­u­tive func­tions. There was no con­sis­tent impact throughout dif­fer­ent video games on Dig­it Span or Cat­e­gor­i­cal Flu­en­cy. Chess improved qual­i­ty of life mea­sured with the WHO-QoL-OLD scale (p < 0.00001). Mahjong tem­porar­i­ly improved depres­sive symp­toms. Go elevated BDNF lev­els and left mid­dle tem­po­ral gyrus and bilat­er­al puta­males metabolism.
• Con­clu­sions: Tra­di­tion­al board video games could sluggish glob­al cog­ni­tive decline and enhance the qual­i­ty of life in elder­ly sub­jects. Dif­fer­ent video games have fluctuate­ing impacts on spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive domains, pos­si­bly medi­at­ed by func­tion­al and bio­log­i­cal elements.

The Research in Context: