Journal
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 7, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01804
Keywords
acute aerobic exercise; working memory; N-back; brain activation patterns; fMRI; preadolescent children
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31300863]
- Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation [141113]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Working memory lies at the core of cognitive function and plays a crucial role in childrens learning, reasoning, problem solving, and intellectual activity. Behavioral findings have suggested that acute aerobic exercise improves childrens working memory; however, there is still very little knowledge about whether a single session of aerobic exercise can alter working memorys brain activation patterns, as assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Therefore, we investigated the effect of acute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise on working memory and its brain activation patterns in preadolescent children, and further explored the neural basis of acute aerobic exercise on working memory in these children. We used a within-subjects design with a counterbalanced order. Nine healthy, right-handed children were scanned with a Siemens MAGNETOM Trio 3.0 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scanner while they performed a working memory task (N-back task), following a baseline session and a 30-min, moderate-intensity exercise session. Compared with the baseline session, acute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise benefitted performance in the N-back task, increasing brain activities of bilateral parietal cortices, left hippocampus, and the bilateral cerebellum. These data extend the current knowledge by indicating that acute aerobic exercise enhances childrens working memory, and the neural basis may be related to changes in the working memorys brain activation patterns elicited by acute aerobic exercise.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available