The current study examined whether meditation experience is associated with changes in endurance performance and inhibitory control-relevant neurocognitive functions caused by mental fatigue. Twenty-four athletes with meditation experience (AME) and twenty-five athletes without meditation experience (AWME) underwent a 30-min incongruent Stroop test in mental fatigue condition (MF) and a 30-min congruent Stroop test in control condition (CON) in a randomised-counterbalanced order. Inhibitory control-relevant neurocognitive functions were assessed using Flanker task and event-related potentials, followed by an endurance task using the Bruce treadmill protocol. Visual analogue scale was used to evaluate perceived mental fatigue (VAS-MF) before (T1), after Stroop test (T2) and after Flanker task (T3), and VAS for motivation (VAS-M) was used to evaluate motivation in Flanker task and endurance task. Results indicated that, compared to the CON, AWME in the MF exhibited overall lower accuracy, smaller incongruent N2 amplitude of the Flanker task (ps < .05), and shorter time to exhaustion (TTE) of the endurance task (p < .001), whereas AME did not exhibited difference in these outcomes between the conditions. Along with athletes in the MF reported lower VAS-M in endurance task. These findings suggest the benefits of meditation experience in mitigating the negative effects of mental fatigue.

Evidence has demonstrated that athletes exhibit superior cognitive performance associated with executive control. In the oculomotor system, this function has been examined using the interleaved pro-saccade and anti-saccade task (IPAST), wherein participants, prior to target appearance, are instructed to either automatically look at the peripheral target (pro-saccade) or suppress the automatic response and voluntarily look in the opposite direction (anti-saccade). While the IPAST has provided much insight into sensorimotor and inhibitory processing, it has yet to be performed in athletes. Moreover, limited research has examined saccade metrics in athletes. Here, we examined saccade latency and movement kinematics in the IPAST among athletes (N = 40) and nonathletes (NON) (N = 40). Higher direction error rates were obtained in the anti-saccade compared to the pro-saccade condition, with no differences between athletes and NON noted. Significantly faster saccade latencies were observed in athletes compared to NON in both conditions, in addition to faster pro-saccades compared to anti-saccades. Furthermore, athletes showed significantly higher frequencies and faster latencies of express saccades compared to NON in correct pro-saccades. Additionally, athletes exhibited significantly faster latencies of express saccades compared to NON in erroneous anti-saccades. Differences in saccade metrics between athletes and NON were not seen. Overall, these findings demonstrate that athletes display altered saccade performance likely associated with sensorimotor and preparatory processing, highlighting the potential of using IPAST to objectively investigate sensorimotor and cognitive functions in athletes.

The bidirectional influence between emotional language and inhibitory processes has been studied in alphabetic languages, highlighting the need for additional investigation in nonalphabetic languages to explore potential cross-linguistic differences. The present ERP study investigated the bidirectional influence in the context of Mandarin, a language with unique linguistic features and neural substrates. In Experiment 1, emotional adjectives preceded the Go/NoGo cue. The ERPs revealed that negative emotional language facilitated inhibitory control. In Experiment 2, with a Go/NoGo cue preceding the emotional language, the study confirmed that inhibitory control facilitated the semantic integration of negative language in Chinese, whereas the inhibited state may not affect deeper refinement of the emotional content. However, no interaction was observed in positive emotional language processing. These results suggest an interaction between inhibitory control and negative emotional language processing in Chinese, supporting the integrative emotion-cognition view.

The information-seeking behaviour of adults focuses on optimizing the gathering and utilizing information to minimize search costs. In contrast, children tend to engage in information search during decision-making with less consideration for costs. This difference in behaviour is believed to be linked to the development of executive functions. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between executive function and cost-related information-gathering behaviour. We assessed 56 children aged 4-6 years, involving three tasks: an information-gathering task, an inhibitory control and a working memory task. In the information-gathering task, children participated in both non-cost and cost conditions, where they were given the opportunity to freely gather information or incur a cost to acquire information. The findings revealed that children with higher inhibitory control tended to gather less information when a cost was involved. This highlights the important role of inhibitory control in shaping information-seeking behaviour in early childhood.

The present study investigates how heritage speakers conduct good-enough processing at the interface of home-language proficiency, cognitive skills (inhibitory control; working memory), and task types (acceptability judgement; self-paced reading). For this purpose, we employ two word-order patterns (verb-final vs. verb-initial) of two clausal constructions in Korean-suffixal passive and morphological causative-which contrast pertaining to the mapping between thematic roles and case-marking and the interpretive procedures driven by verbal morphology. We find that, while Korean heritage speakers demonstrate the same kind of acceptability-rating behaviour as monolingual Korean speakers do, their reading-time patterns are notably modulated by construction-specific properties, cognitive skills, and proficiency. This suggests a heritage speaker\'s ability and willingness to conduct both parsing routes, induced by linguistic cues in a non-dominant language, which are proportional to the computational complexity involving these cues. Implications of this study are expected to advance our understanding of a learner\'s mind for underrepresented languages and populations in the field.

Humans frequently prepare for agile movements by decreasing stability. This facilitates transitions between movements but increases vulnerability to external disruptions. Therefore, humans might weigh the risk of disruption against the gain in agility and scale their stability to the likelihood of having to perform an agility-demanding action. We used the theory of motor synergies to investigate how humans manage this stability-agility tradeoff under uncertainty. This theory has long quantified stability using the synergy index, and reduction in stability before movement transitions using anticipatory synergy adjustment (ASA). However, the impact of uncertainty - whether a quick action should be executed or inhibited - on ASA is unknown. Furthermore, the impact of ASA on execution and inhibition of the action is unclear. We combined multi-finger, isometric force production with the go/no-go paradigm. Thirty participants performed constant force (no-go task), rapid force pulse (go task), and randomized go and no-go trials (go/no-go task) in response to visual cues. We measured the pre-cue finger forces and computed ASA using the uncontrolled manifold method and quantified the spatio-temporal features of the force after the visual cue. We expected ASA in both go/no-go and go tasks, but larger ASA for the latter. Surprisingly, we observed ASA only for the go task. For the go/no-go task, 53% of participants increased stability before the cue. The high stability hindered performance, leading to increased errors in no-go trials and lower peak forces in go trials. These results align with the stability-agility tradeoff. It is puzzling why some participants increased stability even though 80% of the trials demanded agility. This study indicates that individual differences in the effect of task uncertainty and motor inhibition on ASA is unexplored in motor synergy theory and presents a method for further development.

This meta-analysis examined inhibitory control performance in the antisaccade task across mental disorders. Following PRISMA guidelines, we analyzed data from k = 146 studies (n = 13,807 participants) on antisaccade performance. Effect sizes were estimated using random-effects models and restricted maximum-likelihood estimation, with robustness tests for study heterogeneity and publication bias. Most disorders displayed elevated error rates, with schizophrenia showing the greatest impairments, followed by autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Small to medium impairments were also found in eating disorders, major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and substance use disorder. Results were robust against corrections for publication bias and largely unaffected by confounding variables. Prolonged latencies were observed in schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, with smaller and less robust effect sizes. Results indicate inhibitory control deficits in the antisaccade task across mental disorders, especially evident for error rates. While present in most disorders, results imply varying degrees of impairments, ranging from small to large in effect sizes, with largest impairments in schizophrenia.

Design-based STEM learning is believed to be an effective cross-disciplinary strategy for promoting children\'s cognitive development. Yet, its impact on executive functions, particularly for disadvantaged children, still need to be explored. This study investigated the effects of short-term intensive design-based STEM learning on executive function among left-behind children. Sixty-one Grade 4 students from a school dedicated to the left-behind children in China were sampled and randomly assigned to an experimental group (10.70 ± 0.47 years old, n = 30) or a control group (10.77 ± 0.43 years old, n = 31). The experimental group underwent a two-week design-based STEM training program, while the control group participated in a 2-week STEM-related reading program. Both groups were assessed with the brain activation from 4 brain regions of interest using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and behavioral measures during a Stroop task before and after the training. Analysis disclosed: (i) a significant within-group time effect in the experimental group, with posttest brain activation in Brodmann Area 10 and 46 being notably lower during neutral and word conditions; (ii) a significant between-group difference at posttest, with the experimental group showing considerably lower brain activation in Brodmann Area 10 and Brodmann Area 46 than the control group; and (iii) a significant task effect in brain activity among the three conditions of the Stroop task. These findings indicated that this STEM learning effectively enhanced executive function in left-behind children. The discrepancy between the non-significant differences in behavioral performance and the significant ones in brain activation implies a compensatory mechanism in brain activation. This study enriches current theories about the impact of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning on children\'s executive function development, providing biological evidence and valuable insights for educational curriculum design and assessment.

UNASSIGNED: There are limited studies exploring the relationship between physical activity (PA), cognitive function, and the brain processing characteristics in healthy older adults.
UNASSIGNED: A total of 41 participants (42.7 ± 20.5 years, 56.1% males) were included in the data analysis. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form was used to assess PA levels, and the Chinese version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment-Basic and the Flanker task were employed to evaluate cognitive function. Furthermore, fMRI technology was utilized to examine brain activation patterns.
UNASSIGNED: The cognitive function of the older adults was found to be significantly lower compared to the young adults. Within the older adults, those with high levels of PA exhibited significantly higher cognitive function than those with low and medium PA levels. The fMRI data showed significant differences in brain activation patterns among young adults across the different PA levels. However, such difference was not observed among older adults.
UNASSIGNED: A decline in cognitive function was observed among older adults. There was a significant correlation between the levels of PA and cognitive function in healthy older adults. The study demonstrated significant effects of PA levels on brain activation patterns in inhibitory control-related regions among young adults, while not significant among older adults. The findings suggest that neurological mechanisms driving the relationship between PA and cognitive function may differ between older and young adults.

Exposure of wildlife to anthropogenic noise is associated with disruptive effects. Research on this topic has focused on behavioural and physiological responses of animals to noise, with little work investigating links to cognitive function. Neurological processes that maintain cognitive performance can be impacted by stress and sleep disturbances. While sleep loss impairs cognitive performance in Australian magpies, it is unclear whether urban noise, which disrupts sleep, can impact cognition as well. To fill this gap, we explored how environmentally relevant urban noise affected the performance of wild-caught, city-living Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen tyrannica) on a cognitive task battery including associative and reversal learning, inhibitory control, and spatial memory. Birds were housed and tested in a laboratory environment; sample sizes varied across tasks (n=7-9 birds). Tests were conducted over 4 weeks, during which all magpies were exposed to both an urban noise playback and a quiet control. Birds were presented with the entire test battery twice: following exposure to, and in the absence of, an anthropogenic noise playback; however, tests were always performed without noise (playback muted during testing). Magpies performed similarly in both treatments on all four tasks. We also found that prior experience with the associative learning task had a strong effect on performance, with birds performing better on their second round of trials. Like previous findings on Australian magpies tested on the same tasks in the wild under noisy conditions, we could not find any disruptive effects on cognitive performance in a controlled experimental laboratory setting.