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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Exercise and Children’s Intelligence, Cognition, and Academic Achievement

TLDR
Exercise may prove to be a simple, yet important, method of enhancing those aspects of children’s mental functioning central to cognitive development.
Abstract
Studies that examine the effects of exercise on children’s intelligence, cognition, or academic achievement were reviewed and results were discussed in light of (a) contemporary cognitive theory development directed toward exercise, (b) recent research demonstrating the salutary effects of exercise on adults’ cognitive functioning, and (c) studies conducted with animals that have linked physical activity to changes in neurological development and behavior. Similar to adults, exercise facilitates children’s executive function (i.e., processes required to select, organize, and properly initiate goal-directed actions). Exercise may prove to be a simple, yet important, method of enhancing those aspects of children’s mental functioning central to cognitive development.

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OtherDOI

Lack of exercise is a major cause of chronic diseases

TL;DR: Physical inactivity is a primary cause of most chronic diseases as discussed by the authors, and the body rapidly maladapts to insufficient physical activity, and if continued, results in substantial decreases in both total and quality years of life.
Journal ArticleDOI

Physical activity and mental health in children and adolescents: a review of reviews

TL;DR: Assessment of reviews investigating physical activity and depression, anxiety, self-esteem and cognitive functioning in children and adolescents and the association between sedentary behaviour and mental health by performing a brief review shows small but consistent associations betweensedentary screen time and poorer mental health.
Journal ArticleDOI

The effect of exercise-induced arousal on cognitive task performance: a meta-regression analysis.

TL;DR: Positive effects were observed following exercise regardless of whether the study protocol was designed to measure the effects of steady-state exercise, fatiguing exercise, or the inverted-U hypothesis, and cognitive performance was affected differentially by exercise mode.
Journal ArticleDOI

Exercise improves executive function and achievement and alters brain activation in overweight children: a randomized, controlled trial.

TL;DR: Consistent with results obtained in older adults, a specific improvement on executive function and brain activation changes attributable to exercise were observed, and the cognitive and achievement results add evidence of dose-response and extend experimental evidence into childhood.
Journal ArticleDOI

Executive Functions after Age 5: Changes and Correlates

TL;DR: This review paper outlines the importance of examining EF throughout childhood, and even across the lifespan, and the role of school-age children's EF in various aspects of school performance, as well as social functioning and emotional control.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex "Frontal Lobe" tasks: a latent variable analysis.

TL;DR: The results suggest that it is important to recognize both the unity and diversity ofExecutive functions and that latent variable analysis is a useful approach to studying the organization and roles of executive functions.
Book ChapterDOI

Chapter 11 Working memory

TL;DR: This chapter demonstrates the functional importance of dopamine to working memory function in several ways and demonstrates that a network of brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, is critical for the active maintenance of internal representations.
Book

Attention and Effort

Journal ArticleDOI

Brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study.

TL;DR: This large-scale longitudinal pediatric neuroimaging study confirmed linear increases in white matter, but demonstrated nonlinear changes in cortical gray matter, with a preadolescent increase followed by a postadolescent decrease.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood

TL;DR: The dynamic anatomical sequence of human cortical gray matter development between the age of 4-21 years using quantitative four-dimensional maps and time-lapse sequences reveals that higher-order association cortices mature only after lower-order somatosensory and visual cortices are developed.
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