PSYC 3495 Study Guide - Final Guide: Randomized Controlled Trial, Cardiovascular Fitness, Random Assignment

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3495
• Professor: Gerry Goldberg

Document Summary

Cardiovascular fitness cortical plasticity and aging used in essay. Training target: functional brain networks (activity)--executive control (cognitive task performance) Primary research question: does level of cardiac fitness correspond with efficiency in functional brain networks during cognitive (i. e. executive control) task performance? (study 1) cross-sectional participants divided into high or low fit cft; Behaviour: flanker task and reaction time incongruent vs. congruent (same for study 2) (study 2) randomized control trial participants divided into either cft group or stretching and toning group. Cardio-fitness training (cft) is associated with increased brain activity in regions known to be involved in executive control processing demonstrated in the cross-sectional study (#1) and in the longitudinal intervention study (#2). The benefits of cft on behaviour appear to be mediated by increased activity in executive control regions (frontal and parietal); and decreases in error monitoring regions (anterior cingulate cortex). Memory training (attention-related strategies that support encoding and retrieval processes for purposes of learning and remembering new information)