ArticleScandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports2023
Physical activity, sedentary time, and fitness in relation to brain shapes in children with overweight/obesity: Links to intelligence.
Article in Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Child and Adolescent Health Programs in Obesity and Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Physical Activity and Adolescent Brain Structure, Mental Health, and Academic Outcomes.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Sleep Behaviors and the Shape of Subcortical Brain Structures in Children with Overweight/Obesity: A Cross-Sectional Study - Authors' Reply-2.Indian journal of pediatrics · 2026Article
- Structural and Functional Brain Changes in Children and Adolescents With Obesity.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2025Review
- The Potential Mediating Role of Good Mental Health on the Relationship Between Low Physical Activity and High Screen Time with Executive Functions in Chilean Children and Adolescents.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Sleep Behaviors and the Shape of Subcortical Brain Structures in Children with Overweight/Obesity: A Cross-Sectional Study.Indian journal of pediatrics · 2025Article
- Train and Reprogram Your Brain: Effects of Physical Exercise at Different Stages of Life on Brain Functions Saved in Epigenetic Modifications.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Interplay between preclinical indices of obesity and neural signatures of fluid intelligence in youth.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Sedentary behavior and lifespan brain health.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2024Review
- Neurosustainability.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- The causality of physical activity status and intelligence: A bidirectional Mendelian randomization study.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo examine the association between physical activity, sedentary time, and physical fitness with the shapes of subcortical brain structures in children with overweight/obesity. Further, we analyzed whether differences in the shapes of subcortical brain structures were related to intelligence. We hypothesized that those children with higher physical activity levels, lower sedentary time, and better fitness, would show greater expansion of the brain regions analyzed, and these expansions would be associated with higher intelligence. STUDY
design100 children (10.0 ± 1.1 years, 40 girls) were included in the analyses. Physical activity and sedentary time were measured by accelerometry, and physical fitness was evaluated by a fitness battery. Shapes of subcortical brain structures were assessed by magnetic resonance imaging. Intelligence was measured by the Kaufmann Brief Intelligence test.
resultsPhysical activity was related to expansion of the right/left pallidum, right/left putamen, and right thalamus (p < 0.05). Higher sedentary time was related to contraction of the left thalamus and right nucleus accumbens (p < 0.05). Higher levels of cardiorespiratory fitness were associated with expansion of the right amygdala (p = 0.022). Greater strength in the upper-limb was related to expansion of the right/left pallidum and the left nucleus accumbens (p < 0.038), and contraction of the left amygdala (p = 0.030). Better speed-agility was associated with expansion of the left nucleus accumbens (p = 0.036). Physical activity- and fitness-related expansion of the right pallidum was associated with higher intelligence (all p < 0.05).
conclusionPhysical activity, sedentary time, and physical fitness were significantly related to the shapes of subcortical brain structures, which in turn were related to intelligence in children with overweight/obesity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.