Tracking the relationship between children's aerobic fitness and cognitive control

Abstract

Objective: To investigate if changes in aerobic fitness over a 3-year period are associated with modulations in children's cognitive control.

Method: A sample of 2nd/3rd-grade children (N = 290) completed baseline measures in Fall of 2011, and again in Spring of 2014 at the end of 4th/5th grade. Children completed the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER) test to measure aerobic capacity, a flanker task to evaluate inhibitory control, and an n-back task to assess working memory. Aerobic fitness was included as an independent variable in hierarchical regression analyses conducted at both time points, in addition to analyses examining changes in cognition over time.

Results: At baseline, higher fit children exhibited shorter overall flanker reaction time (RT), as well as superior accuracy and d' scores (i.e., target discrimination) for both 1- and 2-back conditions. Approximately 3 years later, higher levels of fitness were associated with better performance for only the most difficult conditions of each task, including greater incongruent flanker accuracy and less interference during the compatible condition, as well as better accuracy and target discrimination for the 2-back condition of the n-back task. Importantly, increases in fitness were independently related to improvements in incongruent flanker accuracy and 2-back d' scores.

Conclusions: The current findings indicate that both higher aerobic fitness levels as well as increases in children's fitness are associated with better performance for task conditions eliciting greater cognitive demand. Such evidence is vital for implementing future health recommendations intended to foster improved cognitive performance in children. (PsycINFO Database Record

Figure 1

a) Despite overall shorter RT at T2, similar trends were observed at each time point such that congruent trials resulted in shorter RT compared to incongruent trials in both compatibility conditions, and RT was shorter overall in the compatible condition. b) RT interference (incongruent - congruent RT) was greater in the compatible compared to the incompatible condition at both time points. c) Overall accuracy was higher at T2, yet similar trends were witnessed at each time point such that congruent trials resulted in greater accuracy compared to incongruent trials for each compatibility condition. However, congruent trial accuracy decreased in the incompatible (vs. compatible) condition at both time points, whereas incongruent accuracy increased at T1, and remained level at T2. d) Accuracy interference (congruent-incongruent accuracy) was larger in the compatible condition compared to the incompatible condition at both time points. Compatible interference decreased over time whereas incompatible interference increased.

Figure 2

a) Target trials resulted in shorter RT compared to nontarget trials for both 1- and 2-back conditions at each time point. However, RT was lower at T2 compared to T1 for both trial types in the 1-back condition only. b) Target trials also resulted in lower accuracy for both 1- and 2-back conditions at each time point. Accuracy was greater for all trial types at T2. c) False alarm rates decreased over time in both 1- and 2-back conditions. d) d′ scores increased over time in both conditions.