Association between Physical and Motor Fitness with Cognition in Children

Abstract

Background and objective: There is an increased interest in exploring the association between fitness components with cognitive development in children in recent years. One of the scopes is to find the best exercise prescription to enhance health and cognition. Most of the studies so far have focused on cardiorespiratory fitness with little evidence on other fitness components. The present study aimed to explore the association between physical fitness (PF) and motor fitness (MF) with cognitive performance in children. Methods: Two hundred and six schoolboys (11.0 ± 0.8 y) underwent a battery of tests to measure information processing speed (i.e., simple and choice reaction time) and inhibitory control (i.e., Simon task). PF components (i.e., flexibility, muscular strength, and endurance) and MF components (speed and agility) were measured. Results: Multiple linear regression analysis adjusted for potential confounders (i.e., age, socioeconomic status, %fat and physical activity) revealed no relationship between flexibility, speed, muscular strength, and endurance with either information processing tasks or inhibitory control tasks. However, a positive association was observed between agility with both congruent reaction time and incongruent reaction time. Conclusions: No relationship was observed between the underlying fitness components with either information processing or inhibitory control. However, an association was observed between agility with inhibitory control.

The association between the health-related physical fitness and inhibitory control in preschool children

“…Long-term coordinated exercise may improve EFs by increasing the allocation of attention resources and accelerating the neural cognitive process [29]. In addition, similar results have been found in children and adolescents that motor tness was associated with RT [30].…”

Allometrically scaled explosive strength, but not static strength or maximal oxygen uptake is associated with better central processing time in young males

“…Although static strength (measured by grip strength) is associated with cognitive functioning in middle aged and older people, 5,6 previous studies have failed to observe this in young participants. [19][20][21] Instead, explosive strength seems to be a stronger predictor of both simple and higher-level cognitive functioning tasks (e.g. RT and inhibitory control) compared to static strength.…”

“…Although positive associations between grip strength and cognitive function have been observed in middle-aged and older adults, 5,6 the present findings are in line with null findings in young adults 19,21 and children. 20 These differences may suggest that reduced static muscle strength may be an early indicator of delayed nervous system processing and reduced cognitive performance during ageing, 52 but this process is not seen in young people. Instead, young people having a better explosive strength had a better PMT than their peers with lower explosive strength in all scaling scenarios, and the association persisted after adjusting for VO2max (ml kg SMM -1 min -1 ).…”

The Effect of Different Volumes of Computer Load on the Latent Periods of a Simple Sensorimotor Reaction in Primary Schoolchildren

“…Возможной причиной появления сезонной вариабельности ЛП может быть и изменение функционального состояния организма детей в целом, что обычно связывают со школьно-обусловленной гиподинамией (Криволапчук с соавт., 2019). Однако единого мнения по данному вопросу нет, а негативного влияния недостатка физической активности на когнитивные способности не обнаружено (Moradi et al, 2019). Хотя, с другой стороны, выявлено, что адекватная физическая нагрузка помогает улучшить показатели когнитивных тестов, по крайней мере, у детей с ожирением (Ruiz-Hermosa et al, 2020).…”