Serra Laura, Raimondi Sara, di Domenico Carlotta, Maffei Silvia, Lardone Anna, Liparoti Marianna, Sorrentino Pierpaolo, Caltagirone Carlo, Petrosini Laura, Mandolesi Laura
Neuroimaging Laboratory, Fondazione Santa Lucia, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
Department of Motor Sciences and Wellness, University "Parthenope", Naples, Italy.
AIMS Neurosci. 2021 Sep 2;8(4):496-509. doi: 10.3934/Neuroscience.2021026. eCollection 2021.
The relationship between physical exercise and improvement in specific cognitive domains in children and adolescents who play sport has been recently reported, although the effects on visuospatial abilities have not yet been well explored. This study is aimed at evaluating in school-age children practicing artistic gymnastics the visuospatial memory by using a table version of the Radial Arm Maze (table-RAM) and comparing their performances with those ones who do not play any sport. The visuospatial performances of 14 preadolescent girls practicing artistic gymnastics aged between 7 and 10 years and those of 14 preadolescent girls not playing any sport were evaluated in the table-RAM forced-choice paradigm that allows disentangling short-term memory from working memory abilities. Data showed that the gymnasts obtained better performances than control group mainly in the parameters evaluating working memory abilities, such as within-phase errors and spatial span. Our findings emphasizing the role of physical activity on cognitive performances impel to promote physical exercise in educational and recreational contexts as well as to analyse the impact of other sports besides gymnastics on cognitive functioning.
最近有报道称体育锻炼与从事体育运动的儿童和青少年特定认知领域的改善之间的关系，尽管对视觉空间能力的影响尚未得到充分研究。本研究旨在通过使用表格版的放射状臂迷宫（table-RAM）评估学龄期从事艺术体操的儿童的视觉空间记忆，并将他们的表现与不参加任何运动的儿童进行比较。在table-RAM强制选择范式中评估了14名7至10岁从事艺术体操的青春期前女孩和14名不参加任何运动的青春期前女孩的视觉空间表现，该范式可以区分短期记忆和工作记忆能力。数据显示，体操运动员在评估工作记忆能力的参数方面，如相位内误差和空间跨度，比对照组表现更好。我们的研究结果强调了体育活动对认知表现的作用，促使我们在教育和娱乐环境中推广体育锻炼，并分析除体操外其他运动对认知功能的影响。
