Dementia

Note: The study has already been completed. Participation is no longer possible.

During the last years real-time functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has become an established and powerful tool in research on neurofeedback.
Its possible positive effects on cognitive performance in healthy individuals as well as patients have been shown in various contexts.
In a collaborative project between the Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine 4 of the Research Centre Jülich and the Department of Neurology of the RWTH Achen University Hospital we investigate the effect of neurofeedback using real-time fMRI on memory performance in patients suffering from prodromal Alzheimer’s disease.
Participants in our project learn to control their brain activation while performing in a spatial navigation task, with the aim to improve the performance due to learned voluntary control of specific regions in the brain.
Results from this project might contribute to the treatment of cognitive impairment and neurofeedback with real-time fMRI is likely to become a useful clinical tool - also outside the scanner - in the near future.