New research suggests that activities that make kids think fast are good for their brains.FatCamera/Getty Images
Exercise is great for the aging brain, triggering the release of a cocktail of neurochemicals that help stave off cognitive decline. There have been countless studies and (ahem) numerous news articles on the topic.
Its effects on the growing brain, on the other hand, are less well understood and more nuanced. Newly published findings in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise bolster the case that exercise habits are linked to cognitive function in children, but suggest that not all exercise is equally beneficial. To get the biggest brain boost, you need activities that force you to think quickly.
A University of Michigan team led by neuroscientist Eleanna Varangis analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, which administered comprehensive cognitive tests to nearly 10,000 children ages 9 and 10 and also collected data about their participation in sports and other extracurricular activities.
The key distinction they wanted to explore was the difference between “open-skill” and “closed-skill” sports. Open-skill sports, like soccer and basketball, require you to make rapid decisions in fast-changing environments against unpredictable opponents. Closed-skill sports, like running and golf, are more repetitive and predictable.
Great athletes in open-skill sports seem almost telepathic: They know where their teammates are, what their opponents are about to do, where the ball or puck is headed. This requires exceptional executive function, a suite of high-level brain functions that includes cognitive flexibility, working memory and the ability to tune out distractions.
Sidney Crosby was probably born with off-the-charts executive function, but Varangis and her colleagues wanted to find out whether simply playing open-skill sports would cultivate these abilities in the rest of us – and particularly in children whose brains are still developing into their eventual adult form.
The children in the study were split into three groups. One group reported regular involvement in open-skill sports. A second group participated in closed-skill sports. And the third group didn’t participate in sports but did engage in other non-sport hobbies like music, art, drama or chess.
For general cognitive domains like language and processing speed, there were no differences between the three groups after accounting for other factors like family income. But in several different tests of executive function, the open-skill group performed significantly better.
In particular, the open-skill athletes excelled in tests of working memory, attentional control and the ability to filter out distractions. Varangis and her colleagues suggest that these improvements are the result of better connections between different regions of the brain and neural signals that travel more efficiently along these networks.
That’s not to say that closed-skill activities like running, cycling and swimming don’t have brain benefits of their own. The closed-skill group did outperform the non-sport group in a memory task, which fits with other research showing that aerobic fitness boosts the hippocampus, a region of the brain whose functions include memory. And studies have consistently found that higher aerobic fitness is associated with better cognitive function across several domains including executive function.
It also doesn’t mean that everyone needs to sign up for rec league dodge ball or tennis lessons in order to have a healthy brain. For example, previous research from the University of Montreal has found cognitive benefits from “gross motor skills” training, which involves more unorthodox activities such as juggling, obstacle courses and throwing balls at targets.
For kids, too, free outdoor play in a playground or a park or simply on the street likely provides many of the benefits of more formal organized open-skill sport programs. The point isn’t to teach them to master the pick-and-roll or the corner kick, it’s to get their brains and bodies working together. Neuroscience tells us it’s good for them; what they’ll say, hopefully, is that it’s fun.
Alex Hutchinson is the author of The Explorer’s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map.
