The Cogni-Action Project: Physical Activity, Brain, and Cognition

Education and health are crucial topics for public policies as both largely determine the future wellbeing of the society. Currently, several studies recognize that physical activity (PA) benefits brain health in children. However, most of these studies have not been carried out in developing countries or lack the transference into the education field. The Cogni-Action Project is a crossover-randomized trial. The aim of the study is to determinate the acute effects of three different training sessions consisting in (i) "Moderate-Intensity Continuous Training" (MICT), (ii) "Cooperative High-Intensity Interval Training" (C-HIIT), and (iii) sedentary activity on spontaneous brain activity and neuroelectric indices of cognitive performance during a working memory and a reading task, as measured by electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracker. In an energy expenditure counterbalanced fashion, 32 adolescents will randomly undergo each training session , two weeks apart. The main strength of this project is that, to our knowledge, this is the first study analysing the potential influence of PA, sedentarism, and physical fitness on brain structure and function, cognitive performance, and academic achievement in Latin-America and, specifically, in Chile which has been catalogued with an important sociocultural gap. For this purpose, this study will use advanced technologies in neuroimaging (MRI), electrophysiology EEG, and eye-tracking , as well as objective and quality measurements of several physical and cognitive health outcomes.