Effect of Structured and Unstructured Physical Activity Training on Cognitive Functions in Adolescents – A Randomized Control Trial
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Regular physical activity in children and adolescents promotes not only their physical health but also improves their cognition. Paper and pencil Neurocognitive tests (NCT) are commonly used to assess the various cognitive domains of a person and can be used as simple tests to assess improvements, if any, in the cognitive abilities of growing adolescents who practice regular physical activity. AIM: To study the effect of six months of structured and unstructured physical activity on cognitive functions in adolescents. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We recruited 439 healthy adolescent volunteers in the age group of 12 to 17 years (boys 250, girls 189) from a residential school (Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Pondicherry). The following paper and pencil neuropsychological cognitive tests were administered: Two Target Letter Cancellation test, Trail Making test A and B, Ruff Figural Fluency test (RFFT). These participants were then divided into Structured Physical Activity (SPA: n=219; boys 117, girls 102) and Unstructured Physical Activity (USPA: n=220; boys 119, girls 101) groups based on age and gender block randomization method. Six-month intervention was successfully completed by 347 participants only (SPA group: n= 136; boys 77, girls 59; USPA group: n = 139; boys 75, girls 64) and the tests were repeated. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: The data were recorded and statistically analysed by per-protocol analysis method, using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 19. RESULTS: After six months of intervention, both SPA and USPA group participants showed significant improvements in all the tested neurocognitive parameters. On inter-group comparison, participants in SPA group showed significantly better improvements. CONCLUSION: Physical activity training in adolescents is more beneficial when structured as per WHO guidelines, probably due to higher cognitive loading.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Subramanian et al reported beneficial effects of structured physical activity versus unstructured physical and creative sedentary activities in 12-to 17-year-olds on tasks measuring attention, concentration, non-verbal fluency, and mental flexibility.
“Subramanian et al 65 reported beneficial effects of structured PA versus unstructured physical and creative sedentary activities in 12-to 17-year-olds on tasks measuring attention, concentration, non-verbal fluency, and mental flexibility.”
Cites
Developmentally Sensitive Measures of Executive Function in Preschool Children
Carlson, S. M. (2005) · Developmental Neuropsychology · doi:10.1207/s15326942dn2802_3 · Cited by 1,638 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Singh, A. S., Saliasi, E., van den Berg, V., Uijtdewilligen, L., de Groot, R. H. M., Jolles, J., Andersen, L. B., Bailey, R., Chang, Y.-K., Diamond, A., et al. (2019) · British Journal of Sports Medicine · doi:10.1136/bjsports-2017-098136 · Cited by 588 · see citing works
Álvarez-Bueno, C., Pesce, C., Cavero-Redondo, I., Sánchez-López, M., Martínez-Hortelano, J. A., & Martínez-Vizcaíno, V. (2017) · Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2017.06.012 · Cited by 478 · see citing works
Haverkamp, B. F., Wiersma, R., Vertessen, K., van Ewijk, H., Oosterlaan, J., & Hartman, E. (2020) · Journal of Sports Sciences · doi:10.1080/02640414.2020.1794763 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
“…& Martínez-de-Quel, 2019; Purohit & Pradhan, 2017; Sharma et al., 2015; Sjöwall et al., 2019; Spitzer & Hollmann, 2013; Stroth et al., 2009, 2010; Subramanian et al., 2015; Tarp et al., 2016; Torbeyns et al., 2017; Venckunas et al., 2016; Woost et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2015) investigated the…”
BackgroundSingla, D. R., Waqas, A., Hamdani, S. U., Suleman, N., Zafar, S. W., Zill-e-Huma, Saeed, K., Servili, C., & Rahman, A. (2020) · Behaviour Research and Therapy · doi:10.1016/j.brat.2019.04.010 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
- Authors
- Subramanian, S. K.
- Affiliations
- Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital (IN)
- Corresponding author
- Subramanian, Senthil Kumar
- Venue
- JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC RESEARCH
- Publisher
- JCDR Research and Publications
- Published
- 2015
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- CC04-9
- ISSN
- 0973-709X (ISSN-L)
- 2249-782X
- PMC
- PMC4668403
- OpenAlex
- W2413725750
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 1.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- JOURNAL OF CLINICAL AND DIAGNOSTIC RESEARCH (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Jawaharlal Institute Of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Children's Physical and Motor Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
- Keywords
- physical activity, structured physical activity, unstructured physical activity, cognitive function, adolescents, neurocognitive tests, letter cancellation test, Trail Making Test, figural fluency, cognitive load, WHO physical activity guidelines
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
