[F5–02–04]: CAN COGNITIVE TRAINING BE USED AS A TOOL TO PROMOTE COGNITIVE RESERVE IN OLDER ADULTS? MEASURING SIMILARITIES AND INTERACTION EFFECTS

The concept of cognitive reserve has been proposed to account for inter-individual differences in the degree to which brain damage impacts cognition. Cognitive reserve has been associated with early life (e.g., education) and lifelong (e.g., hobbies or profession) cognitive stimulation. Cognitive training may be used as an opportunity to provide or increase cognitive reserve later in life. Hence, an important issue is to determine whether cognitive training has similar effects on the brain and whether persons with low reserve can benefit from these interventions. In this presentation, we will assess the pattern of task-related brain activation associated with differences in levels of cognitive reserve proxies in older adults. We will then measure the effect of cognitive training on functional brain changes and assess their similarities with those related to reserve proxies. Third, we will evaluate whether the brain and cognitive effects of cognitive training are moderated by differences in reserve proxies (i.e., high vs. low education). Results indicate that reserve proxies and cognitive training act through similar brain mechanisms. Individuals with low reserve benefit highly from cognitive training when training modalities are adapted to their capacity and show larger post-training activation increase than those with higher reserve. Our results suggest that reserve can be built later in life using appropriate intervention procedures. The findings will be related to the INTERACTIVE model, which proposes that individual characteristics and training format determine the pattern of training-related brain changes.