Study links exercise intensity

A new study has found that adolescents who engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity daily have better attention control. The study was conducted on both girls and boys between 15-18 years old.

image: U. of I. community health professor Dominika pindus and her colleagues discovered that girls aged 15-18 who engage less in moderate and vigorous physical activities are slower and less precise than their peers when it comes to attention control.

View moreCHAMPAIGN (Ill.) -- Girls who engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity daily have better attention control, a new study has found. The study was conducted on both girls and boys between 15-18 years old." Attentional Control is an aspect of inhibitory controls. Dominika Pindus, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, a professor of kinesiology, community health, led the study." Studies have shown that inhibitive control is associated with higher academic achievement." Pindus and her co-authors used baseline data from a randomised controlled trial of high school students from New South Wales, Australia to examine potential sex differences between physical activity, cognition, and sexual activity. David Lubans, a University of Newcastle researcher, led the original study. The original study collected data on daily physical activity intensity and volume using accelerometers worn on the wrist over a period of up to seven days.

Participants also participated in computerized cognitive tasks." We focused on the variability in participants' responses across trials for this study. This measure allows us to understand the effectiveness of higher attentional control," Pindus stated." However, adolescents respond faster to trials than adults. Variable performance has been linked to poor attentional control. Pindus stated that older adolescents might be more susceptible to variability in their response times to physical activity.

Pindus stated that the researchers used a measure called "intensity gradient" to assess the students' physical activity over time. This gives a broad picture about how each person accumulates intense activity over the course a day.

Researchers wrote that the intensity gradient is a measure of an individual's daily intensity profile. Researchers look at the slope of the line on a graph that shows the intensity of an individual's activity over a given day to determine its value. A person who engages in moderate-to-vigorous activity more often over time has a steeper slope. A person who engages in less vigorous activity over the course of time will have a steeper, more downward slope.

After adjusting for other variables such as body mass index and aerobic fitness the team discovered that the intensity gradient was related to the girls' ability maintain their attention in the face of distracting data in cognitive trials. Researchers report that girls who had less physical activity during the day performed better on cognitive tests that required them to ignore distracting information.

She said, "We know we are not doing a great deal in involving adolescents in exercise. Approximately 80% of adolescents worldwide are often physically inactive," she said. Boys are more physically active than girls, and engage in more intense physical activity.

She said, "It tells me that we may need focus on intervention strategies to engage girls who are least physically active in high intensity physical activity to enhance cognitive function important for academic achievement." The paper "Sex moderates associations between physical activity intensity et attentional control in older adolescents" can be accessed online and at the U. of I. News Bureau.

Diana Yates University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign News Bureau [email protected] edu