Speed of Processing (SoP) Training Plus α-tACS

Dementia is thought to affect 6.3 million people across Europe and is especially prevalent in people over 85 years old (23.7%). In this sense, several cognitive training programs, alone or in combination with non-invasive brain stimulation have been used in order to ameliorate age-related cognitive impairments, and even to act in a prophylactic manner in order to prevent more extreme deficits, such as the ones presented in mild cognitive impairment, or even dementia. Despite all these efforts, the effects of CT - combined or not - with several forms of non-invasive brain stimulation have been modest at most. The current proposal aims to assess if Speed of Processing (SoP) training combined with alpha tACS (α-tACS) increases speed of processing as assessed by the Useful Field of View (UFOV) when comparing to SoP training and sham α-tACS. Furthermore, association betweens changes in speed of processing and changes in other cognitive domains, such as memory, language and executive functioning will be assessed. Finnaly, the current proposal aims at probing the mechanisms underlying these interventions, namely to test brain connectivity and coherence as assessed by EEG.