Objective: To summarise the current evidence on the effects of physical activity (PA) interventions on cognitive and academic performance in children, and formulate research priorities and recommendations.
Design: Systematic review (following PRISMA guidelines) with a methodological quality assessment and an international expert panel. We based the evaluation of the consistency of the scientific evidence on the findings reported in studies rated as of high methodological quality.
Data Sources: PubMed, PsycINFO, Cochrane Central, Web of Science, ERIC, and SPORTDiscus.
Eligibility Criteria For Selecting Studies: PA-intervention studies in children with at least one cognitive or academic performance assessment.
Results: Eleven (19%) of 58 included intervention studies received a high-quality rating for methodological quality: four assessed effects of PA interventions on cognitive performance, six assessed effects on academic performance, and one on both. All high-quality studies contrasted the effects of additional/adapted PA activities with regular curriculum activities. For cognitive performance 10 of 21 (48%) constructs analysed showed statistically significant beneficial intervention effects of PA, while for academic performance, 15 of 25 (60%) analyses found a significant beneficial effect of PA. Across all five studies assessing PA effects on mathematics, beneficial effects were reported in six out of seven (86%) outcomes. Experts put forward 46 research questions. The most pressing research priority cluster concerned the causality of the relationship between PA and cognitive/academic performance. The remaining clusters pertained to PA characteristics, moderators and mechanisms governing the 'PA-performance' relationship and miscellaneous topics.
Conclusion: There is currently inconclusive evidence for the beneficial effects of PA interventions on cognitive and overall academic performance in children. We conclude that there is strong evidence for beneficial effects of PA on maths performance.The expert panel confirmed that more 'high-quality' research is warranted. By prioritising the most important research questions and formulating recommendations we aim to guide researchers in generating high-quality evidence. Our recommendations focus on adequate control groups and sample size, the use of valid and reliable measurement instruments for physical activity and cognitive performance, measurement of compliance and data analysis.
Prospero Registration Number: CRD42017082505.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2017-098136 | DOI Listing |
BMC Psychiatry
January 2025
Division of Epidemiology and Social Sciences, Institute for Health and Equity, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Road, Milwaukee, WI, 53226, USA.
Background: During adolescence, a critical developmental phase, cognitive, psychological, and social states interact with the environment to influence behaviors like decision-making and social interactions. Depressive symptoms are more prevalent in adolescents than in other age groups which may affect socio-emotional and behavioral development including academic achievement. Here, we determined the association between depression symptom severity and behavioral impairment among adolescents enrolled in secondary schools of Eastern and Central Uganda.
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January 2025
Faculty of Engineering, Université de Moncton, Moncton, NB, E1A3E9, Canada.
Diabetes is a growing health concern in developing countries, causing considerable mortality rates. While machine learning (ML) approaches have been widely used to improve early detection and treatment, several studies have shown low classification accuracies due to overfitting, underfitting, and data noise. This research employs parallel and sequential ensemble ML approaches paired with feature selection techniques to boost classification accuracy.
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January 2025
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, 4515 McKinley Ave., St. Louis, MO, 63110, USA.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has dramatically advanced non-invasive human brain mapping and decoding. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) non-invasively measure blood oxygen fluctuations related to brain activity, like fMRI, at the brain surface, using more-lightweight equipment that circumvents ergonomic and logistical limitations of fMRI. HD-DOT grids have smaller inter-optode spacing (~ 13 mm) than sparse fNIRS (~ 30 mm) and therefore provide higher image quality, with spatial resolution ~ 1/2 that of fMRI, when using the several source-detector distances (13-40 mm) afforded by the HD-DOT grid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMJ Open Gastroenterol
January 2025
Institute of Applied Health Research, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Objective: To develop and validate a prognostic model for risk-stratified monitoring of 5-aminosalicylate nephrotoxicity.
Methods: This UK retrospective cohort study used data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum and Gold for model development and validation respectively. It included adults newly diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease and established on 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) treatment between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2019.
Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis
January 2025
Centre for HIV & Sexually Transmitted Infections, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Division of National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Background: HIV rapid diagnostic tests are crucial for timely diagnosis, especially in resource-limited settings. The World Health Organization recommends sensitivity ≥99 % and specificity ≥98 %. This study assessed RDT performance across South Africa's provinces using a proficiency testing program.
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