Abstract: Healthy aging is associated with cognitive impairment, which generally attributed to declines in brain structure and functioning. However, the aging brain retains structural and functional plasticity. With the development of neuroimaging technologies, a large number of brain imaging studies have confirmed that cognitive training positively impacts brain structure and functioning. After training, the aged individuals show: (1) increased structural gray matter volume and integrity of white matter tracts; (2) functional reorganization of brain network when performing cognitive tasks; (3) functional reorganization in intrinsic brain activity and enhancement functional connectivity during resting state. Further studies of cognitive training are required to investigate various factors that influence individual differences of brain plasticity and determine the lasting effects and transfer effects by using longitudinal studies.

Key words: cognitive aging, brain plasticity, cognitive training, functional reorganization, neuroimaging