This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Exergaming in improving executive function and motor ability across different groups of children and adolescents. We searched several databases, including PsycINFO, Web of Science, Embase, PubMed, SPORT Discus, Scopus, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, for randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies published from inception until November 25, 2023, to identify studies investigating the effect of Exergaming on motor and executive function in children. The protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023482281). A total of 37 randomized controlled trials were included in this study. Our results indicate that Exergaming can influence children\'s cognitive flexibility [SMD = 0.34, 95%CI(0.13,0.55), I2 = 0.0%, P = 0.738], inhibition control [SMD = 0.51, 95%CI (0.30,0.72), I2 = 0.0%, P = 0.473], global cognitive [SMD = 0.87, 95%CI (0.50,1.23), I2 = 0.0%, P = 0.974], working memory [SMD = 0.18, 95%CI(-0.16, 0.52), I2 = 46.5%, P = 0.096], gross motor skills [SMD = 0.82, 95%CI (0.30, 1.35), I2 = 79.1%, P<0.001], fine motor skills [SMD = 0.71, 95%CI (0.22,1.21), I2 = 78.7%, P<0.001], balance [SMD = 0.61, 95%CI (0.34, 0.88), I2 = 59.5%, P = 0.001], and cardiorespiratory [SMD = 0.48, 95%CI (0.16, 0.79), I2 = 58.4%, P = 0.019]. While these findings suggest that Exergaming can promote children\'s cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, global cognition and motor abilities, the effect on working memory was not statistically significant. Further high-quality randomized controlled trials are warranted to explore the potential benefits of Exergaming for different groups of children, including those with specific needs.

UNASSIGNED: This study aimed to develop an efficient tool for assessing children\'s fundamental motor skills, the \"Track style\" Children\'s Fundamental Movement Skills Test (TCFMST), based on theories of motor development integrated with Chinese cultural context and physical education teaching situations.
UNASSIGNED: Starting from a literature analysis, the study selected items from existing fundamental movement skill (FMS) assessments, textbooks, physical education and health standards, and children\'s movement guidelines to construct a pool of test items. Subsequently, the items were screened and optimized using the Delphi method. Finally, the feasibility, discrimination, difficulty, reliability, and validity of the constructed test were examined using testing methods.
UNASSIGNED: The TCFMST includes three dimensions: locomotive skills, body control skills, and manipulative skills, with a total of 10 items. The difficulty and discrimination of each item are appropriate; the correlation coefficients for retest reliability range from 0.789 to 0.943 (p < 0.01). The results of exploratory factor analysis indicate that the common factors align with the hypothesized three dimensions, indicating good structural validity of the test. The concurrent validity results show a correlation coefficient of -0.510 (p < 0.01) between the TCFMST and the total score of TGMD-3, indicating a moderate correlation between the two tests.
UNASSIGNED: The TCFMST developed in this study has good difficulty, discrimination, reliability, and validity. It also features strong operability, a short duration, and high interest. It can serve as an important tool for monitoring children\'s fundamental motor skill levels.

Basketball victory relies on an athlete\'s skill to make precise shots at different distances. While extensive research has explored the kinematics and dynamics of different shooting distances, the specific neuromuscular control strategies involved remain elusive. This study aimed to compare the differences in muscle synergies during basketball shooting at different distances, offering insights into neuromuscular control strategies and guiding athletes\' training. Ten skilled shooting right-handed male basketball players participated as subjects in this experiment. Electromyographic (EMG) data for full-phase shooting were acquired at short (3.2 m), middle (5.0 m), and long (6.8 m) distances. Non-negative matrix decomposition extracted muscle synergies (motor modules and motor primitives) during shooting. The results of this study show that all three distance shooting can be broken down into three synergies and that there were differences in the synergies between short and long distances, with differences in motor primitive 1 and motor primitive 2 at the phase of 45% - 59% (p < 0.001, t* = 4.418), and 78% - 88% (p < 0.01, t* = 4.579), respectively, and differences in the motor module 3 found in the differences in muscle weights for rectus femoris (RF) (p = 0.001, d = -2.094), and gastrocnemius lateral (GL) (p = 0.001, d = -2.083). Shooting distance doesn\'t affect the number of muscle synergies in basketball shooting but alters synergy patterns. During long distance shooting training, basketball players should place more emphasis on the timing and synergistic activation of upper and lower limbs, as well as core muscles.

BACKGROUND: Motor difficulties are common in many, but not all, autistic individuals. These difficulties can co-occur with other problems, such as delays in language, intellectual, and adaptive functioning. Biological mechanisms underpinning such difficulties are less well understood. Poor motor skills tend to be more common in individuals carrying highly penetrant rare genetic mutations. Such mechanisms may have downstream consequences of altering neurophysiological excitation-inhibition balance and lead to enhanced behavioral motor noise.
METHODS: This study combined publicly available and in-house datasets of autistic (n = 156), typically-developing (TD, n = 149), and developmental coordination disorder (DCD, n = 23) children (age 3-16 years). Autism motor subtypes were identified based on patterns of motor abilities measured from the Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2nd edition. Stability-based relative clustering validation was used to identify autism motor subtypes and evaluate generalization accuracy in held-out data. Autism motor subtypes were tested for differences in motor noise, operationalized as the degree of dissimilarity between repeated motor kinematic trajectories recorded during a simple reach-to-drop task.
RESULTS: Relatively \'high\' (n = 87) versus \'low\' (n = 69) autism motor subtypes could be detected and which generalize with 89% accuracy in held-out data. The relatively \'low\' subtype was lower in general intellectual ability and older at age of independent walking, but did not differ in age at first words or autistic traits or symptomatology. Motor noise was considerably higher in the \'low\' subtype compared to \'high\' (Cohen\'s d = 0.77) or TD children (Cohen\'s d = 0.85), but similar between autism \'high\' and TD children (Cohen\'s d = 0.08). Enhanced motor noise in the \'low\' subtype was also most pronounced during the feedforward phase of reaching actions.
CONCLUSIONS: The sample size of this work is limited. Future work in larger samples along with independent replication is important. Motor noise was measured only on one specific motor task. Thus, a more comprehensive assessment of motor noise on many other motor tasks is needed.
CONCLUSIONS: Autism can be split into at least two discrete motor subtypes that are characterized by differing levels of motor noise. This suggests that autism motor subtypes may be underpinned by different biological mechanisms.

The efficiency of motor skill acquisition is age-dependent, making it increasingly challenging to learn complex manoeuvres later in life. Zebra finches, for instance, acquire a complex vocal motor programme during a developmental critical period after which the learned song is essentially impervious to modification. Although inhibitory interneurons are implicated in critical period closure, it is unclear whether manipulating them can reopen heightened motor plasticity windows. Using pharmacology and a cell-type specific optogenetic approach, we manipulated inhibitory neuron activity in a premotor area of adult zebra finches beyond their critical period. When exposed to auditory stimulation in the form of novel songs, manipulated birds added new vocal syllables to their stable song sequence. By lifting inhibition in a premotor area during sensory experience, we reintroduced vocal plasticity, promoting an expansion of the syllable repertoire without compromising pre-existing song production. Our findings provide insights into motor skill learning capacities, offer potential for motor recovery after injury, and suggest avenues for treating neurodevelopmental disorders involving inhibitory dysfunctions.

The benefits of learning a motor skill extend to improved task-specific cognitive abilities. The mechanistic underpinnings of this motor-cognition relationship potentially rely on overlapping neural resources involved in both processes, an assumption lacking causal evidence. We hypothesize that interfering with prefrontal networks would inhibit concurrent motor skill performance, long-term learning and associated cognitive functions dependent on similar networks (transfer). We conducted a randomised, double-blinded, sham-controlled brain stimulation study using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in young adults spanning over three weeks to assess the role of the prefrontal regions in learning a complex balance task and long-term cognitive performance. Balance training combined with active tDCS led to higher performance variability in the trained task as compared to the sham group, impacting the process of learning a complex task without affecting the learning rate. Furthermore, active tDCS also positively influenced performance in untrained motor and cognitive tasks. The findings of this study help ascertaining the networks directly involved in learning a complex motor task and its implications on cognitive function. Hence, opening up the possibility of harnessing the observed frontal networks involved in resource mobilization in instances of aging, brain lesion/injury or dysfunction.

Learning new motor skills relies on neural plasticity within motor and limbic systems. This study uniquely combined diffusion tensor imaging and multiparametric mapping MRI to detail these neuroplasticity processes. We recruited 18 healthy male participants who underwent 960 min of training on a computer-based motion game, while 14 were scanned without training. Diffusion tensor imaging, which quantifies tissue microstructure by measuring the capacity for, and directionality of, water diffusion, revealed mostly linear changes in white matter across the corticospinal-cerebellar-thalamo-hippocampal circuit. These changes related to performance and reflected different responses to upper- and lower-limb training in brain areas with known somatotopic representations. Conversely, quantitative MRI metrics, sensitive to myelination and iron content, demonstrated mostly quadratic changes in gray matter related to performance and reflecting somatotopic representations within the same brain areas. Furthermore, while myelin and iron-sensitive multiparametric mapping MRI was able to describe time lags between different cortical brain systems, diffusion tensor imaging detected time lags within the white matter of the motor systems. These findings suggest that motor skill learning involves distinct phases of white and gray matter plasticity across the sensorimotor network, with the unique combination of diffusion tensor imaging and multiparametric mapping MRI providing complementary insights into the underlying neuroplastic responses.

BACKGROUND: Children have alarmingly low levels of competency in fundamental motor skills (FMS) and high levels of physical inactivity. e:health interventions, interventions delivered electronically, are useful tools for intervention in the home through parents, but less is known about the effects of these interventions in early childhood education centers or settings. Therefore, we created the Motor skills At Playtime (MAP) e:health intervention (e:MAP) to be delivered in an early childhood education setting. The goals of this pilot study on e:MAP are to (1) determine the intervention effects on children\'s FMS and physical activity and (2) explore the teachers\' perceptions and ability to facilitate e:MAP.
METHODS: This pilot study uses a pretest/posttest randomized cluster control design. We will recruit at least 64 children (3.5-5 years of age) enrolled in a single early childhood education center. Children will be randomly assigned at the level of the classroom to an e:MAP group (n~30) or a control group (n~30). Children in classrooms assigned to e:MAP will complete an 8-week intervention. We will collect measures of child FMS and physical activity, and teacher\'s perceptions of the program before (pretest) and after the intervention (posttest). FMS measures include process (Test of Gross Motor Development-3rd Edition) and product-oriented scores. Physical activity will be assessed using a 7-day accelerometer wear protocol. Teachers\' perceptions will be assessed through a brief survey. Lastly, we will collect data on teachers\' ability to facilitate e:MAP through a daily survey.
UNASSIGNED: This study will yield novel insights into the effectiveness and feasibility of a health intervention in an early childhood education setting. Results from this work will expand our knowledge of how to harness e:health modalities, which have the potential to significantly expand the distribution and scalability of FMS interventions.

This study aims to review the scientific evidence regarding the effects of table tennis practice on children and adolescents. Studies were searched in three electronic databases (PubMed, Scopus, and SportDiscus) from their inception up to May 2024. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed using the 10-point Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) and Methodological Index for Non-Randomized Studies (MINORS). A total of twelve studies were examined, with interventions involving children with intellectual disabilities, ADHD, DCD, ASD, and typically developing children. A variety of training programs were assessed over durations ranging from 6 weeks to 1 year in the studies included. Table tennis was shown to positively impact various domains, including executive function, motor skills, visual perception, graphomotor function, gross motor skills, coordination capacity, behavioral inhibition, and social behavior. Nonetheless, it is imperative to expand the number of studies on children and adolescents with diverse conditions to more comprehensively evaluate the benefits of table tennis for each specific condition.

(1) Background: The objective of the study was to verify the effects of COVID-19 confinement on motor skills through a longitudinal study in Portuguese children who were one year old at the beginning of the pandemic. (2) Methods: The sample consisted of 88 children of both sexes, in the pre-COVID-19 assessment, they were 13.31 ± 2.4 months old and in the post-COVID-19 assessment, the same children were already 49.31 ± 2.5 months old. Motor skills were assessed using the PDMS-2 scales. For the statistical analysis, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to test normality, and the Wilcoxon test was used to compare the results of the two assessments in the same sample. (3) Results: There were statistically significant differences in all motor skills assessed, with children presenting, on average, worse results in all global motor skills in the post-COVID-19 assessment, as opposed to fine motor skills, showing better results in the post-COVID-19 assessment. (4) Conclusions: These results show the negative impact of the pandemic on children evaluated with a special emphasis on global motor skills, with the majority demonstrating values considered below average for their age, noting that the pandemic protocols may have had serious consequences on children\'s motor development, warning professionals who deal daily with children in these age groups about the importance of stimulating global motor skills.