Dataset Information

Mild Physical Activity Does Not Improve Spatial Learning in a Virtual Environment.

ABSTRACT: It is well-established that physical exercise in humans improves cognitive functions, such as executive functions, pattern separation, and working memory. It is yet unknown, however, whether spatial learning, long known to be affected by exercise in rodents, is also affected in humans. In order to address this question, we recruited 20 healthy young male adults (18-30 years old) divided into exercise and control groups (n = 10 in each group). The exercise group performed three sessions per week of mild-intensity aerobic exercise for 12 weeks, while the control group was instructed not to engage in any physical activity. Both groups performed maximal oxygen uptake (VO_2max) tests to assess their cardiovascular fitness at baseline and every 4 weeks through the 12 weeks of the training program. The effects of mild aerobic exercise were tested on performance in two different virtual reality (VR)-based spatial learning tasks: (1) virtual Morris water maze (VMWM) and (2) virtual Radial arm water maze (VRAWM). Subjects were tested in both tasks at baseline prior to the training program and at the end of 12 weeks training program. While the mild-intensity aerobic exercise did not affect subjects' VO_2max parameters, mean time to anaerobic threshold increased for the exercise group compared with control. No effect was observed, however, on performance in the VMWM or VRAWM between the two groups. Based on these results, we suggest that mild-intensity aerobic exercise does not improve spatial learning and memory in young, healthy adults.

SUBMITTER: Ben-Zeev T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7705229 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Mild Physical Activity Does Not Improve Spatial Learning in a Virtual Environment.

Ben-Zeev Tavor T Weiss Inbal I Ashri Saar S Heled Yuval Y Ketko Itay I Yanovich Ran R Okun Eitan E

Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience 20201117

It is well-established that physical exercise in humans improves cognitive functions, such as executive functions, pattern separation, and working memory. It is yet unknown, however, whether spatial learning, long known to be affected by exercise in rodents, is also affected in humans. In order to address this question, we recruited 20 healthy young male adults (18-30 years old) divided into exercise and control groups (<i>n</i> = 10 in each group). The exercise group performed three sessions pe ...[more]

PMID: 33281575

Similar Datasets

Project description:Interventions: The intervention arm is named HoPS, an acronym of Home-based Physical Activity for Survivors. HoPS intervention programme aims to improve physical activity level among cancer survivors, in particular breast and colorectal cancer by employing Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) in the development of the programme. It combines of psychoeducation and social media approach to behavioural intervention. Participants of the HoPS will be provided with a non-tailored printed material and gradual tapering down of face-to-face group meetings to improve knowledge and skills of physical activity. While WhatsApp is used as a structured direct remote feedback strategy to allow for supervised home-based physical activity. 1. Face-to-face group meetings There will be 2 meet up sessions for all participants in the HoPS group. The sessions provide a standardized lectures deliver by the researcher using power point slides. The first session of lecture (1-hour duration) will cover the areas of a brief introduction of HoPS programme, physical activity knowledge and goal setting. The second session of lecture (15-minutes duration) will cover for barriers to physical activity and following that a sharing session (15-minutes duration) by a role model (a cancer survivor) to share her experience in engaging in physical activity. In each of the sessions, after the lectures, an exercise session will be conducted by a certified exercise instructor with at least 3 years experienced in coaching for exercise. The duration of this exercise session will be 2 hours and the focus is train the participants on how to perform a proper and correct exercise for cancer survivors. This will involved aerobic exercises and resistance exercis Primary outcome(s): Total MET-minutes/week using validated IPAQ [Baseline, at 8-week (immediately after intervention) and at 16-week post intervention] Study Design: Purpose: Educational / counselling / training; Allocation: Randomised controlled trial; Masking: Blinded (masking used);Assignment: Parallel;Type of endpoint: Efficacy

Project description:Spatial hearing is critical for communication in everyday sound-rich environments. It is important to gain an understanding of how well users of bilateral hearing devices function in these conditions. The purpose of this work was to evaluate a Virtual Acoustics (VA) version of the Spatial Speech in Noise (SSiN) test, the SSiN-VA. This implementation uses relatively inexpensive equipment and can be performed outside the clinic, allowing for regular monitoring of spatial-hearing performance. The SSiN-VA simultaneously assesses speech discrimination and relative localization with changing source locations in the presence of noise. The use of simultaneous tasks increases the cognitive load to better represent the difficulties faced by listeners in noisy real-world environments. Current clinical assessments may require costly equipment which has a large footprint. Consequently, spatial-hearing assessments may not be conducted at all. Additionally, as patients take greater control of their healthcare outcomes and a greater number of clinical appointments are conducted remotely, outcome measures that allow patients to carry out assessments at home are becoming more relevant. The SSiN-VA was implemented using the 3D Tune-In Toolkit, simulating seven loudspeaker locations spaced at 30° intervals with azimuths between -90° and +90°, and rendered for headphone playback using the binaural spatialization technique. Twelve normal-hearing participants were assessed to evaluate if SSiN-VA produced patterns of responses for relative localization and speech discrimination as a function of azimuth similar to those previously obtained using loudspeaker arrays. Additionally, the effect of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the direction of the shift from target to reference, and the target phonetic contrast on performance were investigated. SSiN-VA led to similar patterns of performance as a function of spatial location compared to loudspeaker setups for both relative localization and speech discrimination. Performance for relative localization was significantly better at the highest SNR than at the lowest SNR tested, and a target shift to the right was associated with an increased likelihood of a correct response. For word discrimination, there was an interaction between SNR and word group. Overall, these outcomes support the use of virtual audio for speech discrimination and relative localization testing in noise.

Project description:BackgroundThe home environment has a significant influence on children's physical activity, sedentary behavior, dietary intake, and risk for obesity and chronic disease. Our understanding of the most influential factors and how they interact and impact child behavior is limited by current measurement tools, specifically the lack of a comprehensive instrument. HomeSTEAD (the Home Self-administered Tool for Environmental assessment of Activity and Diet) was designed to address this gap. This new tool contains four sections: home physical activity and media equipment inventory, family physical activity and screen time practices, home food inventory, and family food practices. This paper will describe HomeSTEAD's development and present reliability and validity evidence for the first section.MethodsThe ANGELO framework guided instrument development, and systematic literature reviews helped identify existing items or scales for possible inclusion. Refinement of items was based on expert review and cognitive interviews. Parents of children ages 3-12 years (n = 125) completed the HomeSTEAD survey on three separate occasions over 12-18 days (Time 1, 2, and 3). The Time 1 survey also collected demographic information and parent report of child behaviors. Between Time 1 and 2, staff conducted an in-home observation and measured parent and child BMI. Kappa and intra-class correlations were used to examine reliability (test-retest) and validity (criterion and construct).ResultsReliability and validity was strong for most items (97% having ICC > 0.60 and 72% having r > 0.50, respectively). Items with lower reliability generally had low variation between people. Lower validity estimates (r < 0.30) were more common for items that assessed usability and accessibility, with observers generally rating usability and accessibility lower than parents. Small to moderate, but meaningful, correlations between physical environment factors and BMI, outside time, and screen time were observed (e.g., amount of child portable play equipment in good condition and easy to access was significantly associated with child BMI: r = -0.23), providing evidence of construct validity.ConclusionsThe HomeSTEAD instrument represents a clear advancement in the measurement of factors in the home environment related to child weight and weight-related behaviors. HomeSTEAD, in its entirety, represents a useful tool for researchers from which they can draw particular scales of greatest interest and highest relevance to their research questions.

Dataset Information

Mild Physical Activity Does Not Improve Spatial Learning in a Virtual Environment.

Publications

Mild Physical Activity Does Not Improve Spatial Learning in a Virtual Environment.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets