Background, literature review, and significance in grant proposal development

The deterioration of cognitive abilities and brain tissue due to age could have several adverse effects on mental systems and could even lead to dementia. Thus, researchers are trying to discover methods which could help keep brain function, independence, health and cognition among aged people in its best shape. Usually, with age, the white and gray matter of the brain shrivels with this action seen more in its prefrontal cortex than other regions. Other affected brain parts are the cerebellum, the prefrontal cortex on the side as well as the central temporal lobe structure which includes the hippocampus. Despite this, the occipital cortices and the entorhinal do not experience any form of shrinkage (Ballesteros et al., 2015). Common symptoms of this shrinkage include reduced memory strength, lower mental processing ability, irregular memory and inability to carry out regular actions. Speech, knowledge and previous memories, however, typically remain strong. This trend is seen even in adults and patients suffering from non-severely impaired cognitive abilities or Alzheimer's as their memory base is intact while they showed reduced abilities in learning new things. Quite remarkably, researches carried out using magnetic resonance images of body functions showed modified neural priming among aged people though the behavioral priming was kept intact, maybe as a sort of recompense (Ballesteros et al., 2013; Aristotle University of T. et al., 2015)

Several studies have backed the idea that a solution could be found towards improving the quality of life of the older population. A phenomenon known as Neuroplasticity has been discovered in animals. It means how much the brain is able to adapt following an environmental modification and it is dependent on cognitive function and neural attachments. Therefore, we should expect a more loaded hippocampus in people who exist in superior environments due to their higher wealth of interest (Ballesteros et al., 2015).

Experiments carried out on humans indicate occurrences of neural plasticity dependent on the neural substrate level and this phenomenon doesn't happen equally in the young and old adults. The brain, as it progresses in age, still remains neuroplastic to some extent and it is affected by the actions of a person (Connor & Shaw, 2016; Friedrich et al., 2014). Cognitive plasticity results from the prolonged inequality existing between resources available to organisms and those taken up by the environment and it determines how capable the brain will be in conditioning itself based on behavioral tendencies (Bavelier et al., 2012). In accordance with the neuroplasticity beliefs, several moves have been made aimed at improving cognition and mental deterioration via the reinforcement of social interaction skills, exercising cognitive abilities, participating in physical trainings and adopting healthy living methods (Granic, Lobel & Engels, 2014).

Training exercises have proved very helpful on the cognitive abilities of aged people especially in the areas of memory, reasoning, attention, cognition, multitasking, information processing speed and operational memory (Jak, Seelye & Jurick, 2013; Anguera et al., 2013; Hampstead et al., 2012).

Merging video games with these training schemes is an approach which is enjoying huge attention even though it has not been conclusively proven scientifically to truly boost cognitive abilities of its patients. A recent comprehensive study discovered that in situations where individual skills such as attention, problem solving and memory are exercised singly, it causes significant improvements in the trainees though these improvements were restricted to the exercised skills (Ballesteros et al., 2015). Therefore, the real question here is if these improvements can affect the other skills which were not trained thus causing a general improvement in the cognitive abilities of the aged population.

Researches on mental exercises indicate that playing intensive video games could improve a number of perceptive and mental skills such as changing tasks, short-term visual recollection, sight and vision-related perception, mental rumination over objects and personal action command for both young and aged persons alike (Bavelier et al., 2012; Ballesteros et al., 2015). Despite this, several other researches could not identify any associated improvement in mental ability or the identified improvements were negligible or in some cases, the improvements were more in the younger ones and not the aged group (Kuhn et al., 2014; Lampit, Hallock & Valenzuela, 2014). A good example is Owen et al. (2010) who carried out trainings for 11,430 persons over a period of 6 weeks with emphasis laid on cognitive exercises aimed at enhancing memory, visuospatial strength, reasoning, organization as well as attention but despite their thoroughness, they couldn't identify any improvement in cognitive ability separate from the exercised skills.

Intensive video games have shown promise in aiding perceptual and cognitive skills, however, several of these games are fast-paced, action-packed, intuitive and they require quick processing speed, ability to choose between several game plans and in some cases, they involve violence (Chisholm and Kingstone, 2012; Nouchi et al., 2013). Due to these above features, these games might not be the best approach for aged people. Intense video games gave the least favourable reactions especially when compared to less-intense ones. Furthermore, the subjects themselves preferred the less-intense games to the intense ones (Boot et al., 2013). A pleasing discovery among the young population, however, is that cognitive enhancement can be achieved in other ways apart from action games (Nouchi et al., 2013; Anguera et al., 2013)

Irrespective of the favourable response towards the use of video games in cognitive therapy, scientific backing of their effectiveness is inconclusive. A just concluded analytic research, however, proved a number of desired effects were achieved though they were subject to factors including training duration, trainee age and the cognitive skills considered.

The condition called Dementia refers to a very serious mental illness which could affect daily activities by impairing one or more of the major brain functions like language, memory, visuospatial function as well as executive functions (Nouchi et al., 2013; Toril et al., 2014; Ballesteros et al., 2015). This research, if thoroughly carried out and its inferences adopted, could play a massive role in checking or completely stopping dementia via the playing of non-intense video games. Two social trends back up the relevance of this research. The first is the rate at which people are getting aged across the world with developing countries possessing the highest numbers in that regard. From statistical data, people who are at or above the age of 60 would be more than twice it's current figures come the year 2050 (United Nations, 2013). If this prediction comes to pass as well as the projected lower fertility rates, then the aged population will take up a huge number of the global population in the nearest future. The second trend is the rising acceptance of video games in the modern-day society. The speed at which video games have grown is quite astounding, starting as a small concept back in the '70s, it is today one of the biggest entertainment industries and it is giving the others like music and movies a run for their money.

References

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