A proof-of-concept sub-study exploring feasibility and preliminary evidence for the role of physical activity on neural activity during executive functioning tasks among young adults after cancer treatment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Executive functioning (EF) deficits are troubling for adolescents and young adults (AYAs) after cancer treatment. Physical activity (PA) may enhance neural activity underlying EF among older adults affected by cancer. Establishing whether PA enhances neural activity among AYAs is warranted. As part of a two-arm, mixed-methods pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT), this proof-of-concept sub-study sought to answer the following questions: (1) is it feasible to use neuroimaging with EF tasks to assess neural activity changes following a 12-week PA intervention? And (2) is there preliminary evidence that a 12-week PA intervention enhances neural activity among AYAs after cancer treatment? METHODS: AYAs in the pilot RCT were approached for enrollment into this sub-study. Those who were eligible and enrolled, completed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with EF tasks (letter n-back, Go/No Go) pre- and post-PA intervention. Sub-study enrollment, adherence to scheduled fMRI scans, outliers, missing data, and EF task performance data were collected. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) analyses, and paired sample t-tests. RESULTS: Nine eligible participants enrolled into this sub-study; six attended scheduled fMRI scans. One outlier was identified and was subsequently removed from the analytical sample. Participants showed no differences in EF task performance from pre- to post-PA intervention. Increases in neural activity in brain regions responsible for motor control, information encoding and processing, and decision-making were observed post-PA intervention (p < 0.05; n = 5). CONCLUSIONS: Findings show that fMRI scans during EF tasks detected neural activity changes (as assessed by the BOLD signal) from pre- to post-PA intervention. Results thus suggest future trials confirming that PA enhances neural activity underlying EF are needed, though feasibility issues require careful consideration to ensure trial success. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov, NCT03016728. Registered January 11, 2017, clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03016728.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".