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Reply to: Do not underestimate the cognitive benefits of exercise

Nature Human Behaviour volume 8, pages 1464–1466 (2024)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 20 August 2024

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replying to O. Dupuy et al. Nature Human Behaviour https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01949-x (2024)

In response to our recent umbrella review1, Dupuy et al.2 argue that the evidence supporting a cognitive benefit of physical exercise is conclusive. Our review, however, provides compelling evidence of critical issues in this literature (that is, underpowered designs, salami slicing, regression towards the mean, placebo-like effects, selective reporting and publication bias) that preclude this conclusion. Although it may seem contradictory, our findings are consistent with the assessment of the certainty of the available evidence contained in the scientific report of the Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Group (see the web annex evidence profiles3), which underpins the World Health Organization guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour4. A closer examination of that report reveals that most of the evidence regarding the impact of physical activity on cognitive functions was rated as of low or very low certainty (that is, confidence in the effect estimates ranges from limited to very little; thus, the true effect may be, and is likely to be, substantially different from the estimate of the effect). For instance, the updated evaluation of the evidence for children and adolescents is based on four randomized controlled trials (RCTs; moderate certainty), five non-RCTs (very low certainty), nine longitudinal studies (low certainty) and six cross-sectional studies (very low certainty). For adults, six systematic reviews are rated as low or very low certainty, except for one review5, which was rated as moderate certainty and found no significant effect when considering active control groups. Our findings therefore seem to be consistent with the World Health Organization’s report. Nonetheless, we present here additional evidence that further supports our conclusions.

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Author information

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 Experimental Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Rafael Román-Caballero

  4. McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Rafael Román-Caballero

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

    Miguel A. Vadillo

  6. Institute of Sport Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Darias Holgado

  7. Sport Sciences Research Centre, Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, Spain

    Antonio Luque-Casado

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

    Pandelis Perakakis

Authors
  1. Luis F. Ciria
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  2. Rafael Román-Caballero
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  3. Miguel A. Vadillo
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  4. Darias Holgado
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  5. Antonio Luque-Casado
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  6. Pandelis Perakakis
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  7. Daniel Sanabria
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Contributions

L.F.C., R.R.-C., M.A.V., D.H., A.L.-C., P.P. and D.S. were involved in the original conceptualization. R.R.-C. did the formal statistical analysis. L.F.C., R.R.-C. and D.S. wrote the original draft. L.F.C., R.R.-C., M.A.V., D.H., A.L.-C., P.P. and D.S. edited and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Luis F. Ciria or Daniel Sanabria.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Human Behaviour thanks Jennifer Etnier, Ryan Stanley Falck and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1 and 2, Tables 1 and 2, Methods and Results.

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Ciria, L.F., Román-Caballero, R., Vadillo, M.A. et al. Reply to: Do not underestimate the cognitive benefits of exercise. Nat Hum Behav 8, 1464–1466 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01950-4

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