Kholin V. Effect of emotional-cognitive stimulation on functional state of central nervous system in aging

The dissertation is devoted to theoretical aspects of brain aging, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and practical aspects related to exploring a new treatment strategy: emotional-cognitive training paradigm. It was established that the formation of MCI syndrome is accompanied by deterioration of functional state of the central nervous system, resulting in impairment of the short-term memory, attention, executive functions, increasing brain internal information processing time (increased latency of P300 cognitive evoked potentials). Elderly people with MCI have a higher brain aging rate, than people without cognitive impairment - the level of biological age in MCI group exceeded the control group over to 5.2 years. It was demonstrated that the use of both pharmacological with nootropic drug phenotropil and newly-developed non-pharmacological emotional-cognitive stimulation in the elderly with MCI significantly improves the functional state of the CNS, as well as parameters of cognitive and emotional functioning. The aging brain rate under emotional-cognitive stimulation was slowed down on 2,4 and 7 years corresponding to stimulation type. Analyzing the effects of emotional-cognitive stimulation that were studied in experiments on old Wistar rats, it was concluded that positive effects of emotional-cognitive stimulation on the central nervous system may be mediated through activation of opioid, monoaminergic and cholinergic brain systems.