To that end, Woods is leading a team now embarking on the largest Phase III clinical trial to date designed to test a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, under a $5.7 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. This noninvasive therapy involves passing a weak and safe electrical current through electrodes affixed to a person’s scalp for no more than 20 minutes at a time. Trial participants simultaneously will undergo “cognitive training,” engaging in specially designed computer tasks that get harder as you get better. Preserving cognition The study seeks to determine whether tDCS can amplify benefits of cognitive training, and whether these combined techniques might be able to actually slow certain aspects of the normal cognitive aging process or even delay the onset of impairment for people whose trajectories have fallen out of the range of normal. A top predictor of developing a memory disorder is if a senior’s cognition is declining faster than that of the average normal older adult; slowing that transition by even six months could translate into billions of dollars saved in the U.S. health care system, Woods says. His new study is not about memory, as people tend to think of memory. Rather, the study targets other kinds of thinking and problem-solving needed for complex tasks of daily living, such as food preparation, medication use, financial management and driving. "We’re trying to find ways to help a large percentage of the population basically live cognitively healthier, longer,” Woods says. “Active and engaged lifestyles seem to be incredibly important for maintaining brain health longer.” PHOTO BY MINDY C. MILLER Adam Woods, PhD, is leading the largest-to-date, Phase III clinical trial designed to test transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS, under a $5.7 million grant from the National Institute on Aging. One goal is to determine whether combining cognitive training and tDCS might actually slow certain aspects of the normal cognitive aging process. 4 | F LO R I DA P HYS I C IAN
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