Physical activity as a model for health neuroscience

Abstract

Health neuroscience is a new interdisciplinary field that combines theories and techniques from health psychology and cognitive and social-affective neuroscience in order to understand how the brain affects and is affected by health behaviors. Physical activity (PA) research can serve as a useful model for various ways in which the brain can be incorporated into health neuroscience studies to better understand variability in the adoption and maintenance of, as well as benefits gained from, health behaviors. Here, we summarize evidence linking PA to brain and cognitive performance from studies conceptualizing the brain as either an outcome or mediator of cognitive change. We then discuss an emerging body of studies using a brain as a predictor approach. We discuss how studies using this approach complement existing PA studies and provide insight into a major source of variability in the outcomes of PA interventions, above and beyond the variability accounted for by known biological and demographic moderators. A more complete understanding of the bidirectional relationships between brain and behaviors, such as PA, could provide valuable insight into how to tailor interventions to optimally affect individuals, identify key barriers, and inform the development of novel policies to promote public health.

Functional and/or structural brain changes in response to resistance exercises and resistance training lead to cognitive improvements – a systematic review

“…1 Schematic illustration of the objective of the present systematic review and the levels of analysis. 'a' indicates that the brain could be regarded as an outcome, a mediator or a predictor [122]. 'b' indicates several possibilities for how structural and functional brain changes, socioemotional changes, and cognitive changes are intertwined [112].…”

“…ERP: event-related potentials; FDG-PET: F-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) positron-emissions tomography (PET); GMV: grey matter volume; LTM: long-term memory; STM: short-term memory; WMV: white matter volume knowledge about resistance exercise and/or resistance training-induced changes is still relatively scarce, and the available literature has not yet been systematically pooled. In particular, the pooling of available evidence regarding functional and structural brain changes is needed because the brain may act as a mediator for the effect of resistance exercises and/or resistance training on cognition [112,122]. Such a systematic pooling of available evidence is needed to provide evidence-based recommendations for individualized exercise prescriptions [123][124][125].…”

Physical activity and cognitive function: between-person and within-person associations and moderators

“…education), and sex (Erickson et al, 2019;Etnier & Labban, 2012;Leckie et al, 2012;Spirduso et al, 2008). Although researchers often include these variables as predictor or control variables, the moderating effect of these variables in the physical activity-cognition relation is seldom examined (Spirduso et al, 2008;Stillman & Erickson, 2018). In the current study, we examined the moderating effects of age, APOE ε4, education, sex, and average level of physical activity in the longitudinal relation between physical activity and cognitive function.…”

“…In addition, little is known about moderators of the longitudinal associations between physical activity and cognitive function (Erickson et al, 2019;J. L. Etnier et al, 2016;Leckie et al, 2012;Stillman & Erickson, 2018). A moderating variable is one that influences the effect (e.g.…”

Brain network predictors of exercise behavior change in sedentary older adults

“…byErickson et al (2014) 62 and has been implicated in the context of physical activity behaviors153 Best et al (2017). found that volume of the lateral prefrontal cortex was positively correlated with exercise adherence in older women (N = 122, mean age = 71.2 years), as indexed by intervention attendance16 .…”