Neurotalent Games receives the UAB's scientific endorsement
UAB researchers conducted the scientific evaluation of the first Neurotalent Games, organised by the Fundación Rosa Maria Vivar, organiser of projects working to raise awareness and increase the knowledge of Alzheimer's disease. The competition included 5,300 secondary school students from all over Catalonia. The top 32 contestants will compete at the finals that will be held on 25 March at the CaixaForum in Barcelona. The tests, endorsed by the Institute of Neuroscience (INc-UAB), will also serve to understand memory-related cognitive processes.
The University gives support to the Fundación Rosa Maria Vivar in the scientific evaluation of the design of cognitive tests and the definition of the main cognitive processes involved in each of the tests and their neural bases, as well as optional training sessions for teachers, in which 500 lecturers took part.
Researchers participating in the evaluation were Margalida Coll, Marta Portero and Margarita Martí, from the Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences and from the INc-UAB; Anna Muro, from the Department of Basic, Developmental and Educational Psychology, and Sílvia Noguer, from the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology.
"The tests we designed evaluate cognitive functions, mainly attention, working memory (which is short term) and long-term memory, specifically declarative or explicit memory, taking into account the age of the children participating and the characteristics of cognitive and brain development during adolescence", explains Margalida Coll.
The brain's neuroplasticity diminishes with age and is severely affected by neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. This is the reason why the scientific community recommends exercising the brain's memory in all stages of life to reach old age with good cognitive levels as a preventive measure to improve the quality of life of older people.
"As a foundation, we work on improving the quality of life of people with Alzheimer's disease. We launched the Neurotalent Games to raise awareness of the importance of training our brain's memory and other cognitive functions since childhood and throughout life with the aim of fostering learning, improving cognitive health to slow down the effects of ageing on the brain and help preserve the quality of life when facing neurodegenerative diseases", explains Margarita Oliva, President of the Fundació Rosa María Vivar.
The results of the Neurotalent Games will also allow studying memory-related cognitive processes such as attention, perception, categorisation, schematisation, consciousness, and metamemory. In the first year of secondary school (around age 12), declarative memory (which in addition to other things allows us to remember facts, knowledge and events) already has an important degree of maturity,but other capacities have not yet fully developed.
The initiative also includes the support of the Government of Catalonia's Ministry for Education and the collaboration of the "la Caixa" Foundation.
The UAB, with Sustainable Development Goals
Good health and well-being