{"doi":"10.1007/s11357-023-00816-3","title":"Mild exercise improves executive function with increasing neural efficiency in the prefrontal cortex of older adults","abstract":"This study examined whether a 3-month mild-exercise intervention could improve executive function in healthy middle-aged and older adults in a randomized control trial. Ultimately, a total of 81 middle-aged and older adults were randomly assigned to either an exercise group or a control group. The exercise group received 3 months of mild cycle exercise intervention (3 sessions/week, 30-50 min/session). The control group was asked to behave as usual for the intervention period. Before and after the intervention, participants did color-word matching Stroop tasks (CWST), and Stroop interference (SI)-related reaction time (RT) was assessed as an indicator of executive function. During the CWST, prefrontal activation was monitored using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). SI-related oxy-Hb changes and SI-related neural efficiency (NE) scores were assessed to examine the underlying neural mechanism of the exercise intervention. Although the mild-exercise intervention significantly decreased SI-related RT, there were no significant effects of exercise intervention on SI-related oxy-Hb changes or SI-related NE scores in prefrontal subregions. Lastly, changes in the effects of mild exercise on NE with advancing age were examined. The 81 participants were divided into two subgroups (younger-aged subgroup [YA], older-aged subgroup [OA], based on median age [68 years.]). Interestingly, SI-related RT significantly decreased, and SI-related NE scores in all ROIs of the prefrontal cortex significantly increased only in the OA subgroup. These results reveal that a long-term intervention of very light-intensity exercise has a positive effect on executive function especially in older adults, possibly by increasing neural efficiency in the prefrontal cortex.","journal":"GeroScience","year":2023,"id":325449,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":31,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9566,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1043069,"name":"Kazuki Hyodo","orcid":"0000-0002-2976-1351","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043070,"name":"Kazuya Suwabe","orcid":"0000-0001-9286-791X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043071,"name":"Takemune Fukuie","orcid":"0000-0002-1375-2522","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043072,"name":"Min‐Seong Ha","orcid":"0000-0003-4852-2038","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043671,"name":"Chorphaka Damrongthai","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043073,"name":"Ryuta Kuwamizu","orcid":"0000-0001-9659-3506","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043074,"name":"Hikaru Koizumi","orcid":"0000-0002-6465-0550","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":374096,"name":"Michael A. Yassa","orcid":"0000-0002-8635-1498","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043075,"name":"Hideaki Soya","orcid":"0000-0002-3061-4375","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1043068,"name":"Kyeongho Byun","orcid":"0000-0001-8072-1876","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":69,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:08:22.919783Z","pmid":"37318716","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}