Statistical Analysis

The normal distributions of data were tested by the Skewness and Kurtosis measurement. All the variables considered, resulted distributed in a normal manner. The results were reported separately for each group: young adults, total older adults, older adults Control Group (CG) and older adults Experimental Group (EG). The Unpaired Student t-test was used to assess significant differences between the young group and total older adults. The unpaired Student t-test and Chi-squared test were applied to evaluate significant differences between the CG and the EG. The same statistical test was applied to evaluate the differences for biological variables. Pearson’s (r) co-efficient correlation was applied to assess the strength of the relationship between the basal levels of age, BMI, WIP-1, C, IL-1β, IL-18, IL-6, CRP and of the MMSE scores in older adult subjects. In order to assess the multi-collinearity of the variables, the diagnostic factors, Tolerance and Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) were considered. Accordingly, the MMSE scores were used as an dependent variable in a multiple regression analysis, whereas Age, as well as C, WIP-1, IL-1β, IL-18, and IL-6 were used as independent ones. The differences pre- and post-cognitive training were analyzed by the Paired samples t-test. Statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS 19.0 statistic (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, United States) for Windows (IBM). Results are described as means ± SD for each assessment performed in triplicate. All statistical tests were two-tailed and were evaluated at an alpha level of 0.05.