Can Improving the Nutritional Content of Bread Enhance Cognition? Cognitive Outcomes from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Chronic exercise and neuropsychological function in healthy young adults: a randomised controlled trial investigating a running intervention

“…Regarding past reports that more time in natural environments, including while exercising, can be beneficial to neuropsychological performance (Berman et al 2008 ; White et al 2019a , b ), our results suggest that running outdoors may have had some benefit to negative affect and visuospatial short-term memory storage capacity. However, it should be noted that these results did not reach statistical significance, Bayes factor only indicated anecdotal supportive evidence, and only six of our runners met the outdoor criterion (which was based on the predominant running environment; in contrast, all running in the 2009 and 2010 Stroth studies occurred outdoors).…”

“…Based on previous findings (Stroth et al 2009 , 2010 ), we anticipated that improvements would be observed in cognitive performance and positive affect scores of the runner group compared to the control group, along with increased cardiorespiratory fitness (Padilla et al 2014 ; Silverman and Deuster 2014 ). We also predicted that enjoyment of the exercise regime would have a positive relationship with improvements in positive affect scores as well as with other neuropsychological improvements in relation to increased adherence (Bartlett et al 2011 ; Greene et al 2018 ; Raedeke 2007 ), and that exercising in outdoor environments would be more beneficial to cognitive performance and affect scores, as has been indicated by previous research (Berman et al 2008 ; Leppämäki et al 2002 ; White et al 2019a , b ).…”

“…These tasks were designed to test verbal short-term memory storage capacity and manipulation, respectively (Kouwenhoven and Machado 2023 ; White et al 2019a , b ) and followed the same procedure as Forward and Backward Spatial, with the following exceptions. Participants were cued with a 0.3° white fixation dot for 500 ms before being shown a sequence of numbers (font: Liberation Sans; size: 50), after which the tone sounded and the fixation dot was shown again for 500 ms, followed by a blank screen.…”

“…Thus, performance of tasks which use directed attention (e.g., those tapping working memory or cognitive flexibility) and are cognitively tiring should improve the most (Kaplan and Berman 2010 ). However, Trammell and Aguilar ( 2020 ) observed that while executive functioning improved following exercise, no interaction was found between exercise and environment nor were there any benefits to affect, which contradicts other studies that indicate exercise in a natural environment should additionally benefit cognition and affect (Berman et al 2008 ; Leppämäki et al 2002 ; White et al 2019a , b ). However, as the former study utilised an acute exercise intervention and the latter studies did not directly relate environment to exercise-related change in neuropsychological measures, the influence of environmental conditions of a chronic exercise intervention on neuropsychological function requires further exploration.…”

“…Relationships between environment and well-being indicate that time spent in natural environments can benefit life satisfaction, positive affect and cognition, specifically EF, which suggests that exercising in natural environments may confer additional neuropsychological benefits (Berman et al 2008 ; White et al 2019a , b ). The Attention Restoration Theory suggests that natural environments can be cognitively restorative by presenting a way of attending that requires less effort (Kaplan and Berman 2010 ).…”