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An umbrella review of randomized control trials on the effects of physical exercise on cognition

Nature Human Behaviour volume 7, pages 928–941 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Extensive research links regular physical exercise to an overall enhancement of cognitive function across the lifespan. Here we assess the causal evidence supporting this relationship in the healthy population, using an umbrella review of meta-analyses limited to randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Despite most of the 24 reviewed meta-analyses reporting a positive overall effect, our assessment reveals evidence of low statistical power in the primary RCTs, selective inclusion of studies, publication bias and large variation in combinations of pre-processing and analytic decisions. In addition, our meta-analysis of all the primary RCTs included in the revised meta-analyses shows small exercise-related benefits (d = 0.22, 95% confidence interval 0.16 to 0.28) that became substantially smaller after accounting for key moderators (that is, active control and baseline differences; d = 0.13, 95% confidence interval 0.07 to 0.20), and negligible after correcting for publication bias (d = 0.05, 95% confidence interval −0.09 to 0.14). These findings suggest caution in claims and recommendations linking regular physical exercise to cognitive benefits in the healthy human population until more reliable causal evidence accumulates.

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Fig. 1: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses flow chart for study inclusion.
Fig. 2: Evolution of the scientific literature.
Fig. 3: Re-analysis of the meta-analyses included in the umbrella review and influential variables.
Fig. 4: Network interaction among the meta-analyses included in the umbrella review.
Fig. 5: Assessment of publication bias across the meta-analyses included in the umbrella review.
Fig. 6: Specification curve of meta-analytic models.

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Data availability

Data used to support the conclusions of this study are available at the OSF repository: https://osf.io/e9zqf/.

Code availability

Codes used for the analyses presented here are available at the OSF repository: https://osf.io/e9zqf/.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Junta de Andalucía to L.F.C. (DOC00225), a predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (FPU17/02864), and a research grant from the Junta de Andalucía (PY20_00693) to R.R.-C., a research grant from the Community of Madrid and the Rey Juan Carlos University (V-1159) to A.L.-C., and two research grants from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness awarded to M.A.V. (PID2020-118583GB-I00) and to D.S. (PID2019-105635GB-I00). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Luis F. Ciria, Rafael Román-Caballero & Daniel Sanabria

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Luis F. Ciria, Rafael Román-Caballero, Darias Holgado & Daniel Sanabria

  3. Department of Basic Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel A. Vadillo

  4. Institute of Sport Sciences, University of Lausanne, Quartier UNIL-Centre, Bâtiment Synathlon, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Darias Holgado

  5. Center for Sport Studies, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

    Antonio Luque-Casado

  6. Department of Social, Work, and Differential Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pandelis Perakakis

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  1. Luis F. Ciria
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Contributions

L.F.C., M.A.V., D.H., A.L.-C., P.P. and D.S. were involved in the original conceptualization. L.F.C., R.R.-C., M.A.V., D.H., A.L.-C., P.P. and D.S. were responsible for developing the study methodology. L.F.C., D.H. and D.S. did the literature search. L.F.C., R.R.-C., M.A.V., D.H., A.L.-C., P.P. and D.S. were responsible for data curation. R.R.-C. and M.A.V. did the formal statistical analysis. L.F.C., R.R.-C., D.H. and D.S. wrote the original draft. M.A.V., D.H., A.L.-C. and P.P. edited and reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Luis F. Ciria or Daniel Sanabria.

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Ciria, L.F., Román-Caballero, R., Vadillo, M.A. et al. An umbrella review of randomized control trials on the effects of physical exercise on cognition. Nat Hum Behav 7, 928–941 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01554-4

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