Arthur F Kramer

..These data suggest that with instructions and minimal practice, older adults can ameliorate the cost of a poor search strategy...

....

..We hypothesized that age, sex, education, body composition, and physical activity were direct determinants of fitness, which, in turn, influenced frequency of forgetting indirectly through hippocampal volume and spatial working memory...

..Our approach and findings also provide a foundation for exploring the brain plasticity involved in transfer of trained abilities to novel real-world tasks such as driving, sport, or neurorehabilitation...

..These results provide evidence for plasticity in old age and are discussed in relation to an alternative argument for the role of reduced asymmetry in performance improvements...

....

..We suggest that higher fit children are better at activating and adapting neural processes involved in cognitive control to meet and maintain task goals...

..The findings are the first to indicate that aerobic fitness may relate to the structure and function of the preadolescent human brain...

..Practice with the FFOV task improves older adults' attentional function by increasing their recruitment of regions traditionally associated with orienting visual attention...

....

..These results are discussed in relation to current conceptions of the neural correlates of dual-task performance...

..These data suggest that increased cardiovascular fitness can affect improvements in the plasticity of the aging human brain, and may serve to reduce both biological and cognitive senescence in humans...

..These findings suggest that lower-fit children may have more difficulty than higher-fit children in the flexible modulation of cognitive control processes to meet task demands...

....

..These results support predictions made by models of selective attention and suggest an important mechanism of top-down attentional control in spatially contiguous stimuli...

..The experiment also constitutes the first use of a fully immersive virtual reality display in the study of IOR...

....

..Self-efficacy has been shown to be both an antecedent and determinant of behaviors such as physical activity and may explain variance in the performance of functional tasks among older adults...

..Our findings support theoretically-based predictions and extend the literature showing unique psychological responses conditional on specific types of physical activities...

..These results are discussed in relation to the efficacy of training protocols for modulating attention and executive functions, dual-task processing, and fMRI correlates of plasticity...

..We provide the first evidence for functional connectivity as a source of variance in the association between aerobic fitness and cognition, and discuss results in the context of neurobiological theories of cognitive aging and disease...

..We hope that this research will encourage public health and educational changes that will promote a physically active lifestyle in children...

..Additional analyses suggested that older adults may derive their benefit from finer spatial encoding of search items. These findings suggest that some of the memory processes that support visual search are relatively age invariant...

..HRT should be considered a possible mediator of age-related neural decline in both grey and white matter tissues...

..Similarly, behavioral inhibition and cognitive resource allocation-indices of executive control function-have also been associated with this health behavior...

..Future studies specifically investigating the nature of additional activation seen in MS patients in a wider variety of cognitive tasks would provide insight into the specific cognitive decline in MS...

..To investigate the relationship between aerobic fitness and cognitive variability in preadolescent children...

..The data provide support for a competition view of dual-task processing...

..In this manuscript, we will briefly review some of our recent research on the effects of CVF on brain function, structure, and behavior in older adults. We will then outline some of our current and future directions in this area...

..Increased aerobic fitness is associated with improved cognition, brain health, and academic achievement during preadolescence...

..Two experiments examined the detectability of multiple transient changes within a cluttered and dynamic display (a simulated sonar display)...

..We conducted a set of experiments to examine the utility of several different uni- and multimodal collision avoidance systems (CASs) on driving performance of young and older adult drivers in a high-fidelity simulator...

..Furthermore, the visual search performance advantage obtained in the presence of a background layout or landmark was observed both for individuals with small and large memory spans...

..These results demonstrate a region-specific CBF-cognition relationship and thereby offer new insight into the complex connection between the aging brain and behavior...

..The results suggest that, although participants might be using inhibition at later stages of the preview interval, they are not maintaining inhibition on the old objects throughout most of the preview interval...

..In both experiments, consistent movements were facilitated relative to inconsistent movements, suggesting that arbitrary action information is incorporated into the representations...

..Because children are becoming increasingly overweight, unhealthy and unfit, understanding the neurocognitive benefits of an active lifestyle during childhood has important public health and educational implications...

..To cross-validate the psychometric properties of the abbreviated Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument (LL-FDI), a measure of perceived functional limitations and disability...

..The shortened, psychometrically sound measure provides researchers and practitioners an expedited and reliable instrument for assessing the enjoyment of physical activity...

....

..Individual differences in changes in game performance were correlated with improvements in task switching. The study has implications for the enhancement of executive control processes of older adults...

..Hence, P3 and EEG spectral data are differentially sensitive to changes in attentional processing occurring with complex task training...

..Our data suggest that multitasking costs may be particularly dangerous for older adults even during everyday activities such as crossing the street...

..These data suggest that fitness and education may both be predictive of preserved cognitive function in aging through separable effects on brain structure...

..Measures of driving performance suggested that the drivers gave priority to the driving task when they were conversing. As a result, their linguistic performance suffered...

..Furthermore, these results suggest a strong biological basis for the role of aerobic fitness in maintaining and enhancing central nervous system health and cognitive functioning in older adults...

....

..Results are discussed in terms of the specificity and generality of physical activity effects on cognition...

..Both the benefits and costs related to contextual information were larger for older adults, suggesting that this information was relied on heavily to guide search processes towards the target...

..Finally, we conclude with a summary and brief discussion of important future directions of research on fitness cognition and brain...

..Finally, we discuss the important issue of participant adherence to fitness training programs and the factors that influence fitness participation...

..These results are discussed in relation to a growing literature on vitamin intake on age-related neurocognitive deterioration...

..Morphological analyses revealed that frontal white matter tracts differed as a function of performance in older adults, suggesting that hemispheric connectivity might impact both patterns of recruitment and cognitive performance...

....

..Two experiments examined the detectability of transient changes in cluttered and dynamic displays and optimal scan strategies for performance...

..CONCLUSIONS: These findings extend the scope of beneficial effects of aerobic exercise beyond cardiovascular health, and they suggest a strong solid biological basis for the benefits of exercise on the brain health of older adults...

..Thus, control processes, as indexed by alpha and delta EEG oscillations, can predict learning and skill improvements. The results are of potential use to optimize training regimes...

..Indeed, it has recently been found that aerobic fitness level even predicts cognition over time. Given the paucity of work in this area, several avenues for future investigations are also highlighted...

....

..The present findings have implications for our understanding of the processes involved in the programming of antisaccades and the causes of erroneous prosaccades...

..We also consider the important topic of participant adherence in clinical exercise trials. Finally, we suggest future directions for studies of cardiovascular fitness, aging, and neurocognitive function...

....

..In general, the results are promising and suggest that fitness may serve a neuroprotective function for aging humans...

....

..This study examined differential trajectories of exercise-related self-efficacy beliefs across a 12-month randomized controlled exercise trial...

..Actual or potential applications of this research include the design of displays and interventions to minimize the effects of cognitive distraction on human performance...

..These results highlight the importance of individual differences in scanning strategy in real-world dynamic, cluttered environments...

..We also examine the literature on cognitive and physical fitness training. We conclude with a discussion of the gaps in the literature and suggestions for future research...

..Extrafoveal processing of stimuli within the cued rectangle, however, was not facilitated, suggesting that covert attention was not allocated more densely within the cued than within the uncued object...

..The results are discussed in terms of top-down and stimulus-driven effects on age-related differences in attentional control...

..The results are discussed in terms of recent neuroscientific and psychological data that indicate cognitive and neural plasticity is maintained throughout the life span...

..The implications of these findings for global skilled labor shortages are discussed...

..g., luminance change or motion). Results suggest that preview search is not the automatic capture of attention by transients, but rather is contingent on top-down control settings...

..These results are discussed in terms of developmental differences in the interaction of goal-directed and stimulus-driven processes in the control of attention and action...

..A growing number of studies support the idea that physical exercise is a lifestyle factor that might lead to increased physical and mental health throughout life...

..We describe a research program which examines the influence of aerobic fitness training on the functional activity of the human using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, of humans in fitness interventions...

..Actual or potential applications of this research include those circumstances in which a listener must filter a relevant stream of speech from among multiple, competing voices, such as air traffic control and military environments...

..Even at the largest separations tested, however, processing capacity remained strongly limited...

..To account for the data a model is presented, in which attentional control and working memory processes play an important role in the generation of antisaccades...

..In consistency with the egocentric updating model, object localization following a viewpoint change was affected by the number of objects in the environment...

..Young and old adults both produced FOEs, and the FOEs were strategically modulated by preparatory set. The data are discussed in terms of aging and oculomotor control...

..This pseudoextinction may explain the failures of previous attempts to demonstrate that parallel processing can improve item identification (J. F. Delvenne, 2005; S. J. Luck, S. A. Hillyard, G. R. Mangun, & M. S. Gazzaniga, 1989)...

..Camouflage training benefits at transfer for older adults appeared to be related to improvements in attentional guidance and target recognition rather than a more efficient search strategy...

..Additionally, we found that the paths were significantly lateralized to the right hemisphere. These results are discussed in relation to theories of the function of each region in attentional control...

..Since prioritization by luminance transients can produce a subset-selective search on its own, it may well play an important role in the preview benefit...

..In addition, we discuss the implication of our results with current conceptions of conflict and of its instantiation in the brain. Hum. Brain Mapping 21:96-105, 2004...

..Preliminary measures of brain function hold promise of increased interaction between human and animal researchers and a better understanding of the substrates of experience effects on behavioral performance in aging...

..The data presented in this review should interest physicians who provide preventive care management to middle-aged and older individuals who seek to maintain cognitive vitality with aging...

..Results indicate that objects in the environment that share no features with search items are used as external support to aid memory in guiding visual search...

..These results suggest that dual-task skills can be substantially improved in older adults and that cognitive plasticity in attentional control is still possible in old age...

....

..Improvement was equivalent among age groups in response speed and performance variability but larger in response accuracy for older adults. The results suggest that time-sharing skills can be substantially improved in older adults...

..Moreover, recognition skills were in part stimulus-specific, such that performance was degraded by the introduction of unfamiliar target objects. Implications for screener training are discussed...

....

..These data suggest age-related sparing of task-switching processes in situations in which memory load is low and stimulus-response mappings are well learned...

..Experiment 2 ruled out sensory masking as an explanation for these findings. Results indicate that older observers experience losses in the ability to attend to multiple spatially proximal stimuli within the visual field...

..Moreover, the improvement in performance generalized to new task combinations involving new stimuli. Therefore, it appears that training can substantially improve dual-task processing skills in older adults...