Executive Training and Brain in Adolescent

Healthy

brain/cognitive measures, condition, inhibitor control, training at adolescence

The purpose of this study is to investigate the cognitive and brain effects of inhibitory control (IC) training at adolescence.

Brain imaging now allows to study non-invasively cognitive learning processes. An area of strong scientific interest is the development of executive control, an essential cognitive domain for academic and professional success and for mental and physical health. These functions are essentially located within the prefrontal cortex, characterising by a late maturation until the end of adolescence and, while under genetic control, can likely be improved with targeted interventions. The objective of this project is simple and innovative: testing in adolescents with the most appropriate brain imaging technologies available today (the Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI), the effect of an executive training focused on the inhibitory control (IC). This project aims at precisely testing the effect at the cognitive and brain levels of IC training in adolescence. To do this, the investigators will recruit two groups of 30 teenagers aged 16 to 17 years old, each assigned to one of two learning situations: IC vs Active Control (AC). Each participant will participate in 25 training sessions of 15 minutes per day, 5 days a week for a month. Brain structural and functional differences in the brain and between the pre-test and post-test related to intense IC training will be correlated with cognitive progress.

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