Do not underestimate the cognitive benefits of exercise

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Nature Human Behaviour | Volume 8 | August 2024 | 1460–1463 1460
nature human behaviour
Matters arising
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01949-x
Do not underestimate the cognitive benefits
of exercise
Olivier Dupuy1,2,33, Sebastian Ludyga 3,33 , Francisco B. Ortega 4,5,6,
Charles H. Hillman 7,8, Kirk I. Erickson9,10, Fabian Herold 11, Keita Kamijo12,
Chun-Hao Wang 13,14 , Timothy P. Morris8, Belinda Brown15,16,
Irene Esteban-Cornejo4,5,17, Patricio Solis-Urra 4,18, Laurent Bosquet1,
Markus Gerber3, Said Mekari19,20, Nicolas Berryman 21,22,23, Louis Bherer 24,
Ben Rattray 25, Teresa Liu-Ambrose26,27,28, Claudia Voelcker-Rehage 29 &
Boris Cheval 30,31,32
arising from
L. F. Ciria et al. Nature Human Behaviour https://doi.org/10.1038/
s41562-023-01554-4 (2023).
Evidence suggests that physical exercise benefits cognition across the
lifespan
1,2
. Nevertheless, in an umbrella review of 24 meta-analyses
of randomized controlled trials, Ciria et al.
3
concluded that there is
no support for a causal effect of physical exercise on cognitive per-
formance in healthy populations. As a group of international experts
in the exercise–cognition field, we disagree with this conclusion due
to methodological and theoretical limitations that have received
little consideration. We believe the authors’ warning of caution for
the World Health Organization’s recommendations
2
regarding the
cognitive benefits of exercise is unwarranted.
Ciria et al.3 criticized previous meta-analyses for not including all
available primary studies. However, each meta-analysis had specific
research aims that informed their selection of studies. The lack of broad
eligibility criteria is not necessarily a limitation of previous works but
may serve to improve comparability between studies. Ciria et al.3 can
similarly be criticized for selection bias, because they included only 109
of the 257 available studies in their meta-analysis after applying eligi-
bility criteria that differed from those used in previous meta-analyses.
Specifically, they excluded several types of physical exercise interven-
tions, such as forms of coordination training, as they contend that
Received: 4 September 2023
Accepted: 15 May 2024
Published online: 20 August 2024
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1Laboratory MOVE, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Poitiers, Poitiers, France. 2School of Kinesiology and Physical Activity Sciences, Faculty
of Medicine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 3Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
4Department of Physical Education and Sports, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Sport and Health University Research Institute (iMUDS), University of Granada,
Granada, Spain. 5Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
6Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland. 7Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
8Department of Physical Therapy, Movement, and Rehabilitation Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. 9AdventHealth Research Institute,
Neuroscience, Orlando, FL, USA. 10Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. 11Faculty of Health Sciences Brandenburg,
University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. 12Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Chukyo University, Nagoya, Japan. 13Institute of Physical Education,
Health and Leisure Studies, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan (R.O.C.). 14Department of Psychology, National Cheng Kung University,
Tainan City, Taiwan (R.O.C.). 15Centre for Healthy Ageing, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia, Australia. 16Centre for Precision Health,
Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Western Australia, Australia. 17Instituto de Investigación Biosanitaria ibs.GRANADA, Granada, Spain. 18Faculty of
Education and Social Sciences, Universidad Andres Bello, Viña del Mar, Chile. 19Department of Family Medicine, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke,
Quebec, Canada. 20Centre de Formation Médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick, Université de Sherbrooke, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. 21Département
des Sciences de l’Activité Physique, Faculté des Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 22Centre de recherche de
l’institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal, Montreal, Canada. 23Institut National du Sport du Québec, Quebec, Canada. 24Department of Medicine,
Université de Montréal, Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal and Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 25Research Institute for
Sport and Exercise, Faculty of Health, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 26Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain
Health, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 27Centre for Aging SMART,
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 28Department of Physical Therapy,
Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 29Department of
Neuromotor Behavior and Exercise, Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Münster, Münster, Germany. 30Department of Sport Sciences
and Physical Education, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Rennes, Bruz, France. 31University of Rennes, Rennes, France. 32Laboratory VIPS2, University of
Rennes, Rennes, France. 33These authors contributed equally: Olivier Dupuy, Sebastian Ludyga. e-mail: Sebastian.ludyga@unibas.ch
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