The largest clinical trial ever mounted to test whether computerized brain training can delay dementia has secured another $2.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. The Preventing Alzheimer's with Cognitive Training study, known as PACT and led by researchers at the University of South Florida, has now taken in more than $50 million in federal funding since it launched in 2020.
PACT is asking a deceptively simple question: can structured computer exercises that push speed of processing and other cognitive skills actually reduce a person's chances of developing cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease later on? To answer it, the trial has enrolled 7,600 older adults across 10 sites in the southeastern United States, including Duke University, Clemson University and the University of Florida, with recruitment spanning all key demographic groups.
That scale matters. Small brain training studies have circulated for years without settling the argument, in part because they were too short, too narrow, or too small to detect whether any measured gains translate into fewer dementia diagnoses down the road. A trial of this size, with a demographically broad sample, is positioned to give a far more definitive answer than the field has had - in either direction.
The researchers frame the work as a response to a public health problem that is growing as the Baby Boomer generation ages and rates of cognitive decline climb. No findings have been reported yet; the new grant is intended to keep the study running toward that point. Until the data are in, PACT remains a question being tested rather than an approach shown to work.