Abstract
AbstractPhysical activity positively influences brain health and cognitive functioning in older adults. Several physiological and psychological mechanisms have been identified to underlie such a relationship. Cardiovascular fitness is accompanied with changes in mechanisms such as cerebral blood flow, neurotrophic factors, neurotransmitter systems and neural architecture that have themselves been associated with cognitive performance. Factors associated with exercise such as arousal, mood and self-perception of competence seem also to influence cognitive performance. Other explanation for the benefits of exercise in cognition, results from the fact that the performance of motor skills involve an important cognitive component (e.g., executive functions and information processing speed). Evidence of brain plasticity and behavior has been provided from studies where animals are exposed to enriched or complex environments. Exposure to such paradigms in which physical activity plays an important role has been found to influence various aspects of brain function and structure. Studies using neuroimaging techniques have established a link between the acquisition of different motor skills and the occurrence of neuroplasticity in human adults. This literature review indicates that the type of exercise and its specific perceptual and cognitive characteristics may influence cognitive performance. However, most of the research has been focused on self-paced movements or automatized skills and few intervention studies have examined the results of merging exercise and cognitive training in a single program. An important scientific challenge for the coming years is to design exercise programs capable of mobilizing several type of mechanisms underlying the effects of physical activity on brain and cognition.
Highlights
Physical activity has the potential to intervene positively in several perceptual, cognitive, and physical abilities as well as health factors
Because oxygen and glucose are not stored in the brain, the vascular system must quickly respond to environmental demands on the central nervous system (CNS) by resupplying activated brain areas with these substances [34]
The brain is remarkably plastic at functional and anatomical levels in response to experience, and evidence has accumulated that physical activity preserves brain health and cognition
Summary
Physical activity has the potential to intervene positively in several perceptual, cognitive, and physical abilities as well as health factors. A growing body of work has been dedicated to the study of the relationship between physical activity and cognition. This emergent line of investigation has reported promising findings, in the older population. Meta-analytic reviews show that the effect size of exercise in cognition frequently ranges from small to moderate [24,44]. Studies in animals and humans have investigated the physiological, neurobiological and psychological bases that account for the positive associations between physical activity and cognition. Physical fitness is a set of attributes that are either health-related (e.g., cardiovascular fitness) or skill-related (e.g., reaction time)
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