The Differential Effects of Adiposity and Fitness on Functional Connectivity in Preadolescent Children.

Purpose: Childhood obesity is a global health concern, with >340 million youth considered overweight or obese. In addition to contributing greatly to health care costs, excess adiposity associated with obesity is considered a major risk factor for premature mortality from cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and is also negatively associated with cognitive and brain health. A complementary line of research highlights the importance of cardiorespiratory fitness, a by-product of engaging in physical activity, on an abundance of health factors, including cognitive and brain health.

Brain Network Modularity Predicts Improvements in Cognitive and Scholastic Performance in Children Involved in a Physical Activity Intervention.

: Brain network modularity is a principle that quantifies the degree to which functional brain networks are divided into subnetworks. Higher modularity reflects a greater number of within-module connections and fewer connections between modules, and a highly modular brain is often interpreted as a brain that contains highly specialized brain networks with less integration between networks. Recent work in younger and older adults has demonstrated that individual differences in brain network modularity at baseline can predict improvements in performance after cognitive and physical interventions.

Resting-State Functional Connectivity and Scholastic Performance in Preadolescent Children: A Data-Driven Multivoxel Pattern Analysis (MVPA).

Scholastic performance is the key metric by which schools measure student's academic success, and it is important to understand the neural-correlates associated with greater scholastic performance. This study examines resting-state functional connectivity (RsFc) associated with scholastic performance (reading and mathematics) in preadolescent children (7-9 years) using an unbiased whole-brain connectome-wide multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA). MVPA revealed four clusters associated with reading composite score, these clusters were then used for whole-brain seed-based RsFc analysis.

Greater childhood cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with better top-down cognitive control: A midfrontal theta oscillation study.

The aim of the current study was to examine the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and electroencephalogram-based neural oscillations, using midfrontal theta, during an inhibitory control task in children. One-hundred seventy-one school-aged children (mean age = 8.9 ± 0.

Combined and Isolated Effects of Acute Exercise and Brain Stimulation on Executive Function in Healthy Young Adults.

Acute cognitive enhancement has been sought by healthy young individuals to improve academic and professional performance. Among several methods, physical exercise interventions and transcranial direct current brain stimulation (tDCS) have shown promise in impacting executive functions. Here, we observed a set of new findings about the causal effect of acute aerobic exercise and tDCS across three facets of executive function: Inhibition (as measured by a flanker task) was selectively impacted by acute aerobic exercise but not tDCS, whereas working memory (as measured by an n-back task) was impacted by both acute aerobic exercise and tDCS, with effects emerging on distinct processing components for each manipulation.

A 4-d Water Intake Intervention Increases Hydration and Cognitive Flexibility among Preadolescent Children.

Background: Hydration effects on cognition remain understudied in children. This is concerning since a large proportion of US children exhibit insufficient hydration.

Objective: This study investigated the effects of water intake on urinary markers of hydration and cognition among preadolescents.

Moving fast, thinking fast: The relations of physical activity levels and bouts to neuroelectric indices of inhibitory control in preadolescents.

Background: Structured vigorous physical activity (VPA) can improve cognitive control in children, but studies relating daily physical activity (PA) to cognitive control have yielded conflicting findings. While objectively measured daily PA summarizes all occurrences of PA within a registered period, a minimum duration of continuous PA is required for registration of a PA bout. Because brief bouts of high-intensity PA can account for a large proportion of children's daily activity-related energy expenditure, this study assessed whether daily and bouted VPA were selectively related to cognitive control in preadolescents relative to other PA intensities.

Associations Between Aerobic Fitness and Cognitive Control in Adolescents.

Previous research has found positive associations between cognitive control and aerobic fitness in preadolescents and adults; however, fewer studies have investigated these associations in adolescents. Adolescence is of particular interest due to continued maturation of the prefrontal cortex; an area that subserves cognitive control. This study investigated the associations of aerobic fitness and cognitive control in adolescents.

Associations between waist circumference, metabolic risk and executive function in adolescents: A cross-sectional mediation analysis.

Unlabelled: The main objective of this study was to investigate the associations between waist circumference, metabolic risk factors, and executive function in adolescents.

Methods: The study was cross-sectional and included 558 adolescents (mean age 14.2 years).

Effects of the FITKids physical activity randomized controlled trial on conflict monitoring in youth.

The present study investigated the effect of a 9-month physical activity (PA) intervention on children's cardiorespiratory fitness levels and neuroelectric indices of conflict monitoring (i.e., error-related negativity, ERN).

Comparison of the acute effects of high-intensity interval training and continuous aerobic walking on inhibitory control.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a single bout of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and continuous aerobic exercise (CAE) on inhibitory control. The P3 component of the stimulus-locked ERP was collected in 64 young adults during a modified flanker task following 20 min of seated rest, 20 min of CAE, and 9 min of HIIT on separate days in counterbalanced order. Participants exhibited shorter overall reaction time following CAE and HIIT compared to seated rest.

The association between aerobic fitness and congruency sequence effects in preadolescent children.

Aerobic fitness has previously been related to cognitive control in preadolescents; however, these investigations have generally relied on global measures of performance. Thus, we have little understanding of how aerobic fitness may relate to trial-by-trial modulations in cognitive control. This study utilized congruency sequence effects (CSEs), which characterize how behavior on the current trial is influenced by the previous trial, to investigate the relation of aerobic fitness on varying levels of cognitive control.

Muscular and Aerobic Fitness, Working Memory, and Academic Achievement in Children.

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between aerobic and muscular fitness with working memory and academic achievement in preadolescent children.

Methods: Seventy-nine 9- to 11-yr-old children completed an aerobic fitness assessment using a graded exercise test; a muscular fitness assessment consisting of upper body, lower body, and core exercises; a serial n-back task to assess working memory; and an academic achievement test of mathematics and reading.

Results: Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that after controlling for demographic variables (age, sex, grade, IQ, socioeconomic status), aerobic fitness was associated with greater response accuracy and d' in the 2-back condition and increased mathematic performance in algebraic functions.

Aerobic Fitness Is Associated With Cognitive Control Strategy in Preadolescent Children.

The authors used a conditional accuracy function (CAF) method to compute the mean accuracy of multiple reaction time ranges, to investigate the association between aerobic fitness and the utilization of cognitive control strategy during preadolescence. Thirty-eight higher- and lower-fit children were grouped according to their cardiorespiratory capacity (VO) and completed a modified flanker task. Seventeen young adults were recruited as a reference group of maturation.

Increased brain activation during working memory processing after pediatric mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

Purpose: The neural substrate of post-concussive symptoms following the initial injury period after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) in pediatric populations remains poorly elucidated. This study examined neuropsychological, behavioral, and brain functioning in adolescents post-mTBI to assess whether persistent differences were detectable up to a year post-injury.

Methods: Nineteen adolescents on average 7.

Decreased cerebral blood flow in chronic pediatric mild TBI: an MRI perfusion study.

We evaluated cerebral blood flow (CBF) in chronic pediatric mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) using arterial spin labeling (ASL) magnetic resonance imaging perfusion. mTBI patients showed lower CBF than controls in bilateral frontotemporal regions, with no between-group cognitive differences. Findings suggest ASL may be useful to assess functional abnormalities in pediatric mTBI.

Increased timing variability in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that impaired time perception and the neural circuitry underlying internal timing mechanisms may contribute to severe psychiatric disorders, including psychotic and mood disorders. The degree to which alterations in temporal perceptions reflect deficits that exist across psychosis-related phenotypes and the extent to which mood symptoms contribute to these deficits is currently unknown. In addition, compared to schizophrenia, where timing deficits have been more extensively investigated, sub-second timing has been studied relatively infrequently in bipolar disorder.

Impaired cerebellar-dependent eyeblink conditioning in first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia.

Consistent with reports of cerebellar structural, functional, and neurochemical anomalies in schizophrenia, robust cerebellar-dependent delay eyeblink conditioning (dEBC) deficits have been observed in the disorder. Impaired dEBC is also present in schizotypal personality disorder, an intermediate phenotype of schizophrenia. The present work sought to determine whether dEBC deficits exist in nonpsychotic first-degree relatives of individuals with schizophrenia.