Meta-analysis on the effects of moderate-intensity exercise intervention on executive functioning in children

• Published in: PloS one 2023-02, Vol.18 (2), p.e0279846-e0279846
• Main Authors: Wang, Haixia, Yang, Yifei, Xu, Jinfu, Niu, Lin, Zhang, Yue, Shi, JingMei, Shen, Lin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ability tests; Aerobics; Biology and Life Sciences; Child; Children; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Complications and side effects; Computer and Information Sciences; Engineering and Technology; Executive Function; Exercise; Exercise intensity; Exercise Therapy; Experiments; Flexibility; Health aspects; Humans; Hypotheses; Intervention; Medicine and Health Sciences; Memory; Memory, Short-Term; Meta-analysis; Patient outcomes; People and Places; Physical education; Physical fitness; Physical Sciences; Research and Analysis Methods; Research methodology; Sensitivity analysis; Short term memory; Social Sciences; Software
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279846

We evaluated the effect of moderate-intensity exercise intervention in children and summarized the optimal exercise intervention program. Five significant databases, namely, Web of Science, PubMed, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, were searched, and the literature was screened strictly according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and analyzed using Stata 15.1 software. There were 25 studies from 22 articles, with a total of 2118 subjects included in the results. According to the meta-analysis, exercise intervention effectively improved children's working memory [SMD = -1.05, 95% CI (-1.26, -0.84)] and cognitive flexibility [SMD = -0.86, 95% CI (-1.04, -0.69)], with a minor improvement in inhibitory control [SMD = -0.55, 95% CI (-0.68, -0.42)]. a) Improvements in children's working memory and cognitive flexibility by moderate-intensity exercise interventions reached large effect sizes, and improvements in inhibitory control obtained moderate effect sizes. b) Better improvement in working memory for children aged 10 to 12 years than for children aged 6 to 9 years and better cognitive flexibility for children aged 6 to 9 years than for children aged 10 to 12 years. c) Exercise intervention programs lasting 8 to 12 weeks, 3 to 4 times/week, and 30 min/time are most effective in improving executive function in children.