Relationship between Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Executive Function in Young Adults: Mediating Effects of Gray Matter Volume

Abstract

We evaluated the association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and executive function (EF) in young adults and the mediating effects of GMV on this relationship. This study involved 217 college students. An incremental load exercise program was used to evaluate VO2max. EF was estimated by the Flanker task, the 2-back task, and the more-odd shifting task, while structural magnetic resonance and region-based morphometry (RBM) were used to analyze GMV. The high CRF group had a shorter updating reaction time (RT) (p ≤ 0.05). CRF was positively correlated with the right orbital part of the middle frontal gyrus (ORBmid.R) GMV (p ≤ 0.05). ORBmid.R GMV was negatively correlated with updating RT (p ≤ 0.05). Model 4 in SPSS was used to assess the mediating effects of ORBmid.R GMV between CRF and updating RT. ORBmid.R GMV was established to have a partially mediating role between CRF and updating RT, which accounted for 19.6% of the total effect value. These findings indicate that the negative correlation between CRF and EF was significant, and ORBmid.R GMV played a mediating role in the relationship between CRF and EF, providing new evidence toward comprehensively revealing that CRF promotes EF performance.

Voluntary exercise does not increase gastrointestinal motility but increases spatial memory, intestinal eNOS, Akt levels, and Bifidobacteria abundance in the microbiome

“…In studying the systemic effects of exercise-associated adaptation and the possible interrelationship between organs, the results of the correlation matrix revealed that animals whose VO 2 max level was higher after the 6 weeks of voluntary exercise period could locate the hidden island in the Morris maze test in a shorter period of time than did the rats with lower VO 2 max levels. This is in accordance with earlier observations ( Marton et al, 2016 ; Liu et al, 2022 ). The other interesting correlation is between the level of lactic acid that was measured after VO 2 max texts and the NRF1 levels in the intestine.…”

Executive functions scale for university students: UEF-1

“…Other areas where executive functions have been identified and studied, that help university students, in addition to academic performance, are the relationship of these mental abilities with social interaction and how they comply with established norms ( Hilton et al, 2022 ), how they express themselves adequately emotionally in the relationships they establish with their peers ( Jiang et al, 2022 ), how they plan activities such as trips or avoid obstacles that negatively influence their lives ( Bocchi et al, 2022 ), their quality of sleep and levels of creativity ( Guo et al, 2022 ), health levels ( Liu et al, 2022 ), physical activity planning ( Meng, 2022 ), social network management and eating habits ( Zhonghua and Mingde, 2022 ).…”