Visit the National Academies Press online and register for

Effects of Regular Engagement in Physical Activity 
and Physical Fitness on brain Function
Other research has attempted to characterize fitness-related differences 
in brain function using fMRI and event-related brain potentials (ERPs), 
which are neuroelectric indices of functional brain activation in the electro-
encephalographic time series. To date, few randomized controlled interven-
tions have been conducted. Notably, Davis and colleagues (2011) conducted 
one such intervention lasting approximately 14 weeks that randomized 20 
sedentary overweight preadolescent children into an after-school physical 
activity intervention or a nonactivity control group. The fMRI data col-
lected during an antisaccade task, which requires inhibitory control, indi-
cated increased bilateral activation of the prefrontal cortex and decreased 
bilateral activation of the posterior parietal cortex following the physical 
activity intervention relative to the control group. Such findings illustrate 
some of the neural substrates influenced by participation in physical activ-
ity. Two additional correlational studies (Voss et al., 2011; Chaddock et 
al., 2012) compared higher- and lower-fit preadolescent children and found 
differential brain activation and superior task performance as a function of 
fitness. That is, Chaddock and colleagues (2012) observed increased activa-
tion in prefrontal and parietal brain regions during early task blocks and 
decreased activation during later task blocks in higher-fit relative to lower-
fit children. Given that higher-fit children outperformed lower-fit children 
on the aspects of the task requiring the greatest amount of cognitive con-
trol, the authors reason that the higher-fit children were more capable of 
adapting neural activity to meet the demands imposed by tasks that tapped 
higher-order cognitive processes such as inhibition and goal maintenance. 
Voss and colleagues (2011) used a similar task to vary cognitive control 
requirements and found that higher-fit children outperformed their lower-
fit counterparts and that such differences became more pronounced dur-

---

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
182