People over 40 crack nervous jokes about their fickle memory, their senior moments, their incipient Alzheimer’s. But some of us do wind up betrayed by our memories: not just standing at the foot of the stairs trying to remember what we were fetching, but actually fuzzy-minded in ways that friends and family notice, ways that signal more than simple aging.
The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis is funding a study at the SLU School of Medicine to see whether playing chess actually rewires brain circuitry and thus might help preserve short-term memory.
In other words, there’s a chance that playing a game could postpone dementia.
Researchers are looking for people with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI—enough signs to be a noticeable pattern but not enough to stop them from functioning. They must be “chess naïve,” not yet sure which figure’s the bishop or how the knight gallops. Half of the study’s participants will take classes at the Chess Club; the control group will be offered free instruction later.
“It’s estimated that 10 to 20 percent of people over 65 could be diagnosed with MCI,” says clinical neuropsychologist Lauren Schwarz, who’s leading the study, “but these are changes that you can’t just chalk up to age. There is increasing evidence that people with MCI are at risk for later developing dementia.” Hence the search for early interventions, ways to slow or delay that process.
There’s a chance that playing a game could postpone dementia.
There’s a good chance that an activity as complex as chess over the arc of a few years actually rewires the brain a bit. If it does, cognitive tests and imaging scans will show the difference.
If chess players in the study do show positive results, it might indicate physical changes in the brain’s wiring. “That’s the coolest explanation,” Schwarz says, “because it would suggest that the brain has enough plasticity to either recover function or create new neural networks to compensate for damage.”
Another explanation, though, might be socialization. “That camaraderie can also potentially improve cognitive function,” Schwarz says. “You keep your brain vital by keeping active mentally, socially, and physically. This isn’t physical—they won’t be playing chess on a treadmill—but it’s both mental and social.”
What causes MCI in the first place? “We might be seeing the very early stages of Alzheimer’s, or some subtle changes in blood flow to and within the brain,” she says. All sorts of chronic conditions—high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, mini-strokes—can cause those changes, as can an earlier head injury, a heart attack, or a neurological disease. “The signs are a lot like what we see with aging—mild forgetfulness and the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. The important difference is that it’s happening frequently and others are observing it and finding it cause for concern.”
They might make good opponents in the next match, happy to be trounced.
Call 314-977-4865 to learn more or if you’re interested in participating in the study.
