Effects of cardiorespiratory fitness on cognitive function in middle school students: a systematic review

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function in middle school students. Methods: An extensive literature search was performed for articles published from March 2011 to March 2021 in PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO and CNKI (a Chinese database). Studies were included if: (1) the investigated population was aged between 6 and 18 years, (2) they reported the following outcome indicators: VO2max or VO2peak, cognitive function and/or at least one of the following three dimensions: executive function, attention network, intelligence. Studies that did not meet the aforementioned inclusion criteria or that had a study population with pathological obesity or other related diseases were excluded. Forty-nine articles were included, and the information on the relationships between cardiorespiratory fitness and cognitive function was retrieved for the systematic review. Results: As for the relationships between cardiorespiratory fitness and executive function, consistent evidence showed that adolescents with good cardiorespiratory fitness had better executive function. It should be noted that, compared to other variables corresponding to physical fitness, cardiorespiratory fitness is the most important factor of the attention network. Cardiorespiratory fitness was also found to be a mediating variable for the relationships between birth weight and intelligence. Conclusion: In previous studies, cardiorespiratory fitness was found to be related to different dimensions of middle school students’ cognitive function, including executive function, attention network and intelligence. Evidence also indicated that cardiorespiratory fitness was the most important type of physical fitness related to a certain dimension of cognitive function.