Influence of motor skills on older adults’ cognitive function and its neural underpinning

Research Topic
Influence of motor skills on older adults’ cognitive function and its neural underpinning

Lead Researcher
Kaoru Sekiyama, Professor, Kyoto University Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability (GSAIS)

Host Researcher
Nobuhito Abe, Associate Professor, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Collaborating Researchers
Masatoshi Yamashita, Research fellow (Assistant Professor), Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability, Kyoto University (Shishu-kan)

Takahiro Soshi, Research fellow (Senior Lecturer), Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability, Kyoto University (Shishu-kan)

Maki Suzuki, Lecturer, Osaka University United Graduate School of Child Development

Chie Ohsawa, Associate Professor, School of Music, Mukogawa Women’s University

Makiko Sadakata, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam

Center Co-Researchers
Ryusuke Nakai, Senior Lecturer, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Yuki Otsuka, Research Fellow, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Kohei Asano, Research Fellow, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University

Joint Researcher
Xia Guo, Graduate Student, Kumamoto University Graduate School of Social and Cultural Sciences

The prefrontal cortex – basal ganglia – thalamus – cerebellum loop is considered important in strengthening the connections between the occipital cortex and the frontal cortex during learning. (Helie et al., 2015; Salmi et al., 2018).

Our previous studies show that the activity of the thalamus and basal ganglia increases in elderly people who play sports proficiently or who have high walking ability (Suzuki et al., in prep; Kawagoe et al., 2015), and that prefrontal cortex processing efficiency increases with exercise or instrument training interventions for the inexperienced (Nishiguchi et al., 2015, Guo et al. 2019). In addition, it is suggested that the gray matter volume of the cerebellum was significantly larger in the elderly who are proficient in playing instruments than the non-proficient elderly (Yamashita et al., 2019).

These results suggest that motor skill training may strengthen the prefrontal cortex – basal ganglia – thalamus – cerebellum loop, but further data collection and analysis are required to reinforce these findings.

In order to concretely demonstrate the importance of this loop, we will collect new data during the 2019 academic year on the cognitive functions of sports experts, which need to be further enhanced in addition to the existing data. In addition, we will analyze the functional coupling of the data collected so far.

We expect that these efforts will clarify the role of strengthening the prefrontal cortex – basal ganglia – thalamus – cerebellum loop in maintaining cognitive function in the elderly.

2020/05/29