O efeito agudo do exercício físico nas funções executivas de crianças e adolescentes

• Autor(a) principal: Franco, Silvia de Freitas Affonso
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: [e-mail]
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UERJ
• Texto Completo: http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/handle/1/18789
• topic: Cognition; Child development; Physical activity; Acute effect; Cognição; Desenvolvimento infantil; Atividade física; Efeito agudo; Aptidão física; Exercício físico; Crianças – Desenvolvimento; Adolescentes – Desenvolvimento; Função executiva; CIENCIAS DA SAUDE::EDUCACAO FISICA

Besides the importance of an active lifestyle as a prophylactic and therapeutic strategy for physical and mental illnesses, recent studies indicate promising acute effects of physical exercise on cognitive performance of children and adolescents. Executive functions can affect learning, reasoning, problem solving skills as well as influence in social and emotional aspects, which directly affects the quality of life during the life. In order to investigate the relationship between executive functions and physical abilities; and the acute effect of physical exercise on executive functions of children and adolescents, three studies were developed: Study 1: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the acute effect of a single session of physical exercise on the performance of executive functions of children and adolescents. Throughout database research, 5,991 studies were identified, at the end of the selection stages, 25 studies were included in the meta-analysis. A positive result indicating the acute effect of physical exercise on the inhibitory control of children between 5 and 17 years old was identified (SMD= 0,11; CI95%= 0,03 – 0,20; p= 0,006). The best results were observed after aerobic training, at moderate intensity and lasting between 16 and 35 minutes. Study 2: A cross-sectional study aiming to investigate the relationship between executive functions, physical abilities and socio-emotional skills in 8-12 years old children. Eight physical abilities were included in the analysis, and seven of them resulted in at least one significant result of correlation with executive functions, highlighting as the most expressive result the relationship between inhibitory control and eye-hand coordination. No significant results were found to socioemotional skills. Study 3: A randomized controlled trial aiming to analyze the acute effect of physical exercise on executive functions of children. Twenty-four children between 9 and 10 years old were included in the study. They were randomly allocated to control group (CG), which remained physically inactive, or exercise group (EG), which participated in a Physical Education class. Cognitive assessments (Stroop Test and Digit Span test) were performed before and immediately after the sessions of each group. EG was divided into two subgroups according to their durations (25 and 45 minutes). Two-way ANOVA and the comparison of deltas (post – pre session) showed no significant difference between the groups in executive functions. Based on the results of the three studies in this dissertation, it is concluded that the acute effect of physical exercise can temporarily benefit the cognition of children and adolescents. In addition, it highlights the likely positive relationship between physical capacities and executive functions, with emphasis on capacity of the eye-hand coordination to predict from 25 to 34% the performance of inhibitory control in children. The development of an aerobic physical exercise program, at moderate intensity lasting between 16 to 35 minutes, can acutely benefit the performance of executive functions in children and adolescents, ensuring higher levels of attention and also supporting learning.