The Effect of Motor Skills on Cognitive Abilities of Elderly People and Their Neural Bases

2018 Open Application Projects

Research Topic

The Effect of Motor Skills on Cognitive Abilities of Elderly People and Their Neural Bases

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

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
Maki Suzuki, Lecturer, Osaka University United Graduate School of Child Development
Chie Ohsawa, Research fellow, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University
Masatoshi Yamashita, Research Fellow, Kyoto University
Makiko Sadakata, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam

Joint Researcher

Kaku Ka, Graduate Student, Kumamoto University Graduate School of Social and Cultural Sciences

The prefrontal cortex-basal ganglia-thalamus loop is considered important in enhancing the connection between the occipital cortex and the frontal cortex (Helie et al., 2015).
Our previous studies show that elderly people who actively play sports have greater activity in their thalamus and basal ganglia (Suzuki et al., in prep; Kawagoe et al., 2015), and that prefrontal cortex processing efficiency increases when non-sports-playing elderly people begin to engage in sports (Nishiguchi et al., 2015).
To further investigate this loop from other angles, our sub-project will examine the effect of music ion elderly people without musical instrument training who begin to play instruments. The study investigates general characteristics of how the loop works in high-functioning elderly people.

2018/11/06