TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of aerobic fitness in cortical thickness and mathematics achievement in preadolescent children
AU - Chaddock-Heyman, Laura
AU - Erickson, Kirk I.
AU - Kienzler, Caitlin
AU - King, Matthew
AU - Pontifex, Matthew B.
AU - Raine, Lauren B.
AU - Hillman, Charles H.
AU - Kramer, Arthur F.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding was provided by grants from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institute of Health to Arthur Kramer (RO1 AG25032 and R37 AG025667) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD055352) to Charles Hillman. Kirk Erickson was supported by the National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (R01 DK095172). Matthew Pontifex was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R21 HD078566). Lauren Raine was supported by the National Institute for Agriculture under the Illinois Transdisciplinary Obesity Prevention Program grant (2011-67001-30101) to the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois. We extend our appreciation to Holly Tracy and Nancy Dodge for their help with data collection as well as Nate Medeiros-Ward and Michael Kranz for their input about the Freesurfer analysis.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Chaddock-Heyman et al.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2015/8/12
Y1 - 2015/8/12
N2 - Growing evidence suggests that aerobic fitness benefits the brain and cognition during childhood. The present study is the first to explore cortical brain structure of higher fit and lower fit 9-and 10-year-old children, and how aerobic fitness and cortical thickness relate to academic achievement. We demonstrate that higher fit children (>70th percentile VO2max) showed decreased gray matter thickness in superior frontal cortex, superior temporal areas, and lateral occipital cortex, coupled with better mathematics achievement, compared to lower fit children (<30th percentile VO2max). Furthermore, cortical gray matter thinning in anterior and superior frontal areas was associated with superior arithmetic performance. Together, these data add to our knowledge of the biological markers of school achievement, particularly mathematics achievement, and raise the possibility that individual differences in aerobic fitness play an important role in cortical gray matter thinning during brain maturation. The establishment of predictors of academic performance is key to helping educators focus on interventions to maximize learning and success across the lifespan.
AB - Growing evidence suggests that aerobic fitness benefits the brain and cognition during childhood. The present study is the first to explore cortical brain structure of higher fit and lower fit 9-and 10-year-old children, and how aerobic fitness and cortical thickness relate to academic achievement. We demonstrate that higher fit children (>70th percentile VO2max) showed decreased gray matter thickness in superior frontal cortex, superior temporal areas, and lateral occipital cortex, coupled with better mathematics achievement, compared to lower fit children (<30th percentile VO2max). Furthermore, cortical gray matter thinning in anterior and superior frontal areas was associated with superior arithmetic performance. Together, these data add to our knowledge of the biological markers of school achievement, particularly mathematics achievement, and raise the possibility that individual differences in aerobic fitness play an important role in cortical gray matter thinning during brain maturation. The establishment of predictors of academic performance is key to helping educators focus on interventions to maximize learning and success across the lifespan.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84942891345&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84942891345&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0134115
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0134115
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84942891345
VL - 10
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 8
M1 - e0134115
ER -