Effects of orienteering exercise on spatial visualization ability in preschool children aged 4-5 years: Behavioral and fNIRS evidence.

Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), this study examined cortical activation differences during a mental rotation task in 4-5-year-old children with varying levels of spatial visualization ability, and further compared the effects of Orienteering and Aerobic exercise in children with low spatial visualization ability. In Experiment 1, 186 children aged 4-5 years were divided into high and low spatial visualization groups based on median performance. Cortical activation and functional connectivity (FC) during a mental rotation task were compared. In Experiment 2, children with low spatial visualization ability were randomly assigned to an orienteering group or an aerobic exercise group and completed a 12-week intervention, with pre- and post-intervention behavioral and fNIRS assessments. Results from Experiment 1 showed that, during the task, the high spatial visualization group exhibited significantly lower activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (L-DLPFC) but higher activation in the left primary motor cortex (L-M1), along with stronger FC within the prefrontal-somatosensory-visual association pathway, compared with the low spatial visualization group. In Experiment 2, linear mixed model (LMM) analyses revealed that, compared with the aerobic exercise group, the orienteering group showed greater improvements in mental rotation accuracy and higher neural processing efficiency, as reflected by reduced activation in the L-DLPFC and visual association cortex (VAC), as well as enhanced FC within the prefrontal cortex and between prefrontal, somatosensory, and visual association regions. Mediation analysis further indicated that changes in L-DLPFC activation significantly mediated the relationship between intervention type and improvements in mental rotation performance, whereas the mediating effect of L-DLPFC-VAC FC was not significant. In summary, children with high spatial visualization ability exhibit greater neural efficiency and more optimized patterns of inter-regional brain coordination, while Orienteering exercise enhances neural efficiency and functional coordination in children with low spatial visualization ability, with changes in L-DLPFC activation playing a key mediating role in performance improvement.