The Roles of Physical Activity, Exercise, and Fitness in Promoting Resilience During Adolescence: Effects on Mental Well-Being and Brain Development

Abstract

Adolescence is a critical yet vulnerable period for developing behaviors important for mental well-being. The existing literature suggests that physical activity (PA), exercise, and aerobic fitness promote well-being and reduce risk of mental health problems. In this review, we focus on PA, exercise, and fitness as modifiable resilience factors that may help to promote self-regulation via strengthening of top-down control of bottom up processes in the brain; thereby acting as a buffer against mental health problems during this period of vulnerability. First, we briefly review the link between PA, exercise, and aerobic fitness with mental well-being and reduced mental health problems in adolescence. Then, we present how impairments in self-regulation, which involves top-down control to modulate bottom-up processes, are common across a wide range of mental health disorders. Finally, we utilize the extant neuroimaging literature to highlight how neural systems underlying top-down control continue to develop across adolescence, and propose that PA, exercise, and aerobic fitness may facilitate resilience through strengthening both individual brain regions as well as large-scale neural circuits to improve emotional and behavioral regulation. Future neuroimaging studies assessing the effects of PA/exercise and aerobic fitness at various developmental stages in each sex and those that consider the characteristics (e.g. frequency, intensity, type) and social context of PA/exercise are vital to better understand both macro and micro-scale mechanisms by which these behaviors and attributes may facilitate mental health resilience during adolescent development.