"Cognitive activity"

Concussion is a common injury in the adolescent and young adult populations. While branched chain amino acid (BCAA) supplementation has shown improvements in neurocognitive and sleep function in pre-clinical animal models of mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI), to date, no studies have been performed evaluating the efficacy of BCAAs in concussed adolescents and young adults. The goal of this pilot trial was to determine the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of varied doses of oral branched chain amino acid (BCAA) supplementation in a group of concussed adolescents and young adults...

The fractal dimension of cognition refers to the idea that the cognitive processes of the human brain exhibit fractal properties. This means that certain patterns of cognitive activity, such as visual perception, memory, language, or problem-solving, can be described using the mathematical concept of fractal dimension.The idea that cognition is fractal has been proposed by some researchers as a way to understand the complex, self-similar nature of the human brain. However, it's a relatively new idea and is still under investigation, so it's not yet clear to what extent cognitive processes exhibit fractal properties or what implications this might have for our understanding of the brain and clinical practice...

Mental fatigue (MF) arises during prolonged demanding cognitive activity and results in acute feelings of tiredness and a decreased physical and/or cognitive performance capacity. An often-overlooked population that is significantly at risk for the development of MF are university students. The current study investigated the impact of prolonged in-person theoretical classes on the perceptions of MF, boredom, and sleepiness among 27 Slovenian university students (first-year physiotherapy). Their subjective experiences at various time points during a 4-h class interspersed with a 20 min break were assessed with a repeated measures ANOVA and consequent Bonferroni post-hoc tests (significance set at <0...

Microsaccades are small, involuntary eye movements that occur during fixation. Since the 1950s, researchers have conducted extensive research on the role of microsaccades in visual information processing, and found that they also play an important role in human advanced visual cognitive activities. Research over the past 20 years further suggested that there is a close relationship between microsaccades and visual attention, yet lacking a timely review. The current article aims to provide a state-of-the-art review and bring microsaccades studies into the sight of attention research...

BACKGROUND: Chronic resistance training and acute resistance exercises improve physical performance and can enhance cognitive performance. However, there is still uncertainty about the mechanism(s) responsible for cognitive improvement following resistance training and exercise. Recent findings suggest that resistance exercise has metabolic as well as cognitive demands, which potentially activate similar neural circuitry associated with higher-order cognitive function tasks. Exercising on unstable devices increases the coordinative and metabolic demands and thus may further increase cognitive activation during resistance exercise...

Higher levels of physical activity are known to benefit aspects of brain health across the lifespan. However, the role of sedentary behavior (SB) is less well understood. In this review we summarize and discuss evidence on the role of SB on brain health (including cognitive performance, structural or functional brain measures, and dementia risk) for different age groups, critically compare assessment approaches to capture SB, and offer insights into emerging opportunities to assess SB via digital technologies...

Whether patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) exhibit cognitive impairment is controversial. Also the underlying mechanisms are unknown. We aimed to investigate alterations in cognitive function, neurometabolite levels, and brain function in patients with MG and to explore the associations between abnormal regional brain functional activity, neurometabolite concentrations in the MPFC and left thalamus, and cognitive activity in patients with MG. Neuropsychological tests, proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were performed on 41 patients with MG and 45 race-, sex-, age-, and education-matched healthy controls (HCs)...

The effectiveness of digital care applications in people with need of home care: A systematic review Abstract: Background: The growing need for long-term care poses challenges for healthcare systems. In June 2021, digital care applications (DiPA) were introduced as a new service in the statutory long-term care insurance in Germany. Their aim is to counteract the increased care need and/or support independence in the home. Aim: This project systematically identified and reported on national and international evidence on DiPA effectiveness, as described by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM)...

OBJECTIVES: The present study examined how activity engagement mediates the association between personality and cognition. METHODS: Participants were middle-aged and older adults (Age range: 24-93 years; N  > 16,000) from the Midlife in the United States Study, the Health and Retirement Study, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study of Aging. In each sample, personality traits and demographic factors were assessed at baseline, engagement in cognitive, physical, and social activities was assessed in a second wave, and cognition was measured in a third wave, 8 to 20 years later...

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify whether pain and dementia-related behavior are associated with different types of activities in nursing home residents, controlled for dementia severity. DESIGN: Cross-sectional baseline data from the multicomponent cluster randomized controlled COSMOS trial (acronym for Communication, Systematic pain treatment, Medication review, Organization of activities, and Safety). SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: A total of 723 patients from 33 Norwegian nursing homes with 67 units (clusters)...

Arborists work in high-risk environments, particularly when climbing trees, where a combination of grip strength and resistance to psychological stress are important attributes for safety. This study investigated the physical and cognitive activities of arborists combined with selected workload factors such as blood pressure, pulse, handgrip strength, and other anthropometric measurements, including manual dexterity and spatial awareness. The sample included 10 participants aged 17-48 years. Blood pressure was negatively correlated with handgrip strength after the activity had been performed...

Humans use their fingers to perform a variety of tasks-from simple grasping, to manipulating objects, to typing and playing musical instruments-a variety wider than any other species. The more sophisticated the task, the more it involves individuated finger movements, those in which one or more selected fingers perform an intended action while the motion of other digits is constrained. Here we review the neurobiology of such individuated finger movements. We consider their evolutionary origins, the extent to which finger movements are in fact individuated, and the evolved features of neuromuscular control that both enable and limit individuation...

Introduction Neural exaptations represent descent via transitions to novel neural functions. A primary transition in human cognitive and neural evolution was from a predominantly socially-oriented primate brain to a brain that also instantiates and subserves science, and technology, and engineering, all of which depend on mathematics. Upon what neural substrates, and upon what evolved cognitive mechanisms, did human capacities for STEM, and especially its mathematical underpinnings, emerge? Previous theory focuses on roles for tools, language, and arithmetic in the cognitive origins of STEM, but none of these factors appears sufficient to support the transition...

BACKGROUND: With the ageing population increasing worldwide, identifying effective approaches to counteract cognitive decline becomes significant for maintaining cognitive health and quality of life in older adults. The lack of cognitive activity accelerates age cognitive decline. Cognitive stimulation interventions can maintain older adults' cognitive reserve, enhance their feelings of happiness, and potentially improve their psychosocial wellbeing. AIM: This study aimed to determine the impact of Cognitive Stimulation Intervention on older adults' cognitive function, cognitive self-efficacy, and sense of happiness...

Natural short sleepers (NSS)-individuals who report minimal sleepiness or daytime dysfunction despite habitually sleeping less than the recommended amount (i.e., <7 h)-are a focus of growing interest in sleep research. Yet, the predominance of research on NSS has relied on subjective reports of functionality. The present study examined subjective and objective sleepiness among actigraphy-verified NSS in comparison with recommended (7-9 h/day) length sleepers (RLS) who reported similarly minimal daytime dysfunction...

OBJECTIVE: As opposed to postconcussion physical activity, the potential influence of cognitive activity on concussion recovery is not well characterised. This study evaluated the intensity and duration of daily cognitive activity reported by adolescents following concussion and examined the associations between these daily cognitive activities and postconcussion symptom duration. METHODS: This study prospectively enrolled adolescents aged 11-17 years with a physician-confirmed concussion diagnosis within 72 hours of injury from the emergency department and affiliated concussion clinics...

IMPORTANCE: A healthy lifestyle is associated with better cognitive functioning in older adults, but whether this association is independent of the accumulation of dementia-related pathologies in the brain is uncertain. OBJECTIVE: To determine the role of postmortem brain pathology, including β-amyloid load, phosphorylated tau tangles, cerebrovascular pathology, and other brain pathologies, in the association between lifestyle and cognition proximate to death...

The pupil diameter has been shown to provide insight to a person's experienced cognitive strain. Pupillary light responses, however, make this measure unreliable in uncontrolled settings. Two derived indicators-Index of Cognitive Activity (ICA) and Index of Pupillary Activity (IPA)-aim to 'eliminate' lighting influences, changing based only on the perceived cognitive strain. The IPA potentially offers a valuable alternative to the ICA through its fully transparent calculation, which lifts the restrictions to proprietary software and supported eye trackers...

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 infection and its associated consequence, known as long-COVID, lead to a significant burden on the global healthcare system and limitations in people's personal and work lives. This study aims to provide further insight into the impact of acute and ongoing COVID-19 symptoms and investigates the role of patients' gender and vaccination status. METHODS: 416 individuals (73.9% female) between the ages of 16 and 80 years (M = 44.18, SD = 12.90) with self-reported symptoms of long-COVID participated in an online survey conducted between March and May 2022...

The Alzheimer Society of Ontario's Minds in Motion (MiM) program improves physical function and well-being of people living with dementia (PLWD) and their care partners (CP) (Regan et al., 2019). With the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an urgent need to transition to a virtual MiM that was similarly safe and effective. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to describe the standardized, virtual MiM and evaluate its acceptability, and impact on quality of life, and physical and cognitive activity of participants...