Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognitive Abilities: A Study of Undergraduates
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: In higher education, the correlation between academic performance and cognitive abilities is well established. Physical Exercise (PE) plays a crucial role in enhancing academic achievements. However, the de-cline in Physical Activity (PA) among university students poses concerns regarding cognitive development and academic success. General Objective: The present study aimed to determine the impact of a 6-week physical exercise program on cognitive domains and handgrip strength among undergraduate students at the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences.Methods: A randomized control trial was conducted with a sample of 74 undergraduates from the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences at the University of Peradeniya, who were randomly assigned to exercise and control groups (37 per group). Information on demographic data, cognitive abilities assessed via the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and hand grip strength measurements was gathered before and after the 6-week strengthening ex-ercise program. Rigorous statistical analyses, including the paired and independent sample t-tests, were used to compare pre- and post-exercise measurements and between-group comparisons, respectively. The significance level was set at p < 0.05.Results: Significant improvements were observed in the dominant and non-dominant grip strengths of the ex-ercise groups. Noteworthy gains were evident in executive functioning, naming ability, language skills, delayed recall, and orientation. Conversely, the control group exhibited minimal changes, with slight improvements in delayed recall and total cognitive scores. Conclusion: The exercise intervention led to substantial improvements in handgrip strength and various cognitive domains, notably executive function, naming abilities, language skills, delayed recall, and orientation, within the exercise group. By contrast, the control group displayed limited changes, emphasizing the efficacy of the exercise program. These outcomes emphasize the importance of structured exercise for enhancing the cognitive health of university students.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
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".