Sribas Chowdhury, Adamas University, Kolkata: Cognition is the brain’s ability to process any piece of information according to the perspective of a specific person. Different people have different sorts of cognitive abilities and specific neural patterns which lead to such cognition. While much research has been done to understand the relation of cognition with neural patterns, little is known about the neurophysiological (brain to body) aspects of cognitive abilities. Hypotheses over the years have claimed that walking, specifically, can interfere with neural patterns and cause changes, more specifically, decrease the normal cognitive abilities of a person. Because the neurophysiological aspects of these hypotheses have still not been established, researchers set out to study the neural patterns that form while performing such activities.
Walking and Cognition
Human beings have two kinds of cognitive controls: proactive control and reactive control. Proactive control is used in something that one plans to do beforehand while reactive control is done spontaneously, i.e., on the spot or as a reaction to something happening at the moment. Studies over the years have claimed that walking, the function of motor neurons, can interfere with a cognitive task and can bring a decline in the ability to perform the task.
This may seem counterintuitive, but walking involves a whole lot of processing like looking out for dangers, and reviewing the known walking patterns. This led to the notion that simultaneous walking and performing a cognitive task makes a person perform the task less efficiently. To test the opinion, and to understand the coordination of cognitive patterns and body movement, the team at the University of Rochester used a Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) system to study and understand the neural patterns and observe what changes are brought about when we walk and perform cognitive tasks, as compared to sitting and doing the same.
Decoding on a treadmill
22 young adults with an average age of 20 years were used for the study. They were asked to carry out cognitive tasks either sitting or walking on a treadmill. The visual stimuli provided were using two bivalent images, i.e., images that have been rotated by 90° or more but are essentially the same. The visual stimuli, or cues, were given in both: pure block, where the participant was not informed about the cue; and mixed block, where the participant will be informed. These blocks were administered while both sitting and walking on the treadmill and then the imaging was done in various scenarios. Apart from imaging, the posture of the body was also observed to study the physiological changes occurring during performing the tasks.
Observation
During proactive and reactive controls, no significant changes were observed in reaction time or the time taken to perform the activity, or the efficiency. When the neural patterns were observed, it was seen that during walking, the amplitude of neural patterns changes and decreases, which indicates increased functioning of neural markers. During proactive control, not many changes in the amplitude were observed, but during reactive control, significant changes were observed. This leads to the notion that walking does not lead to a decline in cognition, rather, our brain adapts to the changing behavioral patterns and responds by changing neural patterns.
Future Prospects
Studies done earlier have shown that younger adults rely more on proactive control while older adults tend to use reactive control more. This study opened new possibilities for understanding how cognition works in elderly people. It can also be helpful in understanding how the effect of walking on cognition varies according to different age groups. This is especially useful in studying older adults with cognitive defects and can offer insights into how neural patterns interact with physiological parameters. It can also give insights into understanding the interaction between sensory, motor, and cognitive processing.
Also read: The neural description of nostalgic smells
Reference:
- David P. Richardson, John J. Foxe, Kevin A. Mazurek, Nicholas Abraham, Edward G. Freedman. (2022) Neural markers of proactive and reactive cognitive control are altered during walking: A Mobile Brain-Body Imaging (MoBI) study, NeuroImage, Volume 247.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118853
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