Exercise raises cognitive function, and so does time in natural environments, which raises a question nobody had put cleanly. If both work, does combining them add up, and which of the two is actually doing the work? So 30 young participants did an with electroencephalography before and after a brief walk, one indoors and one outdoors, with everything else held the same. Which walk moved the brain response?
Only the walk outside. Performance improved and the amplitude of the increased following a 15 minute walk outdoors, and neither happened after a 15 minute walk indoors. The P300 is an commonly associated with attention and working memory, so the measure is not just a score. That points at the environment mattering more than the exercise, at least for a brief walk.
That exercise increases cognitive function is well established. Less often noticed is that time spent in natural outdoor environments has been found to produce increases in cognition similar to those from a bout of exercise. Two routes to the same destination invite an obvious question about what happens when they are combined.
The design put them against each other. Electroencephalography probed cognitive function using the oddball task, before and after brief indoor and outdoor walks, in 30 participants averaging 21 years old. The walk was the same length in both conditions, so the environment is what varied.
Performance improved after the outdoor walk, and so did the amplitude of the P300, an event-related neural response commonly associated with attention and working memory. Neither improvement appeared after the 15 minute walk inside. Having both a behavioral and a neural measure move together is what makes the effect hard to dismiss.
The authors read this as the environment playing a more substantial role in raising attention than the exercise does, at least for in the form of a brief walk. They connect it to growing urbanization and rising sedentary time indoors. Keep the scope in view: thirty young adults, one short walk, and an indoor-outdoor comparison that also differs in light, air and what there is to look at.
wat. Fifteen minutes outdoors lifted the brain’s attention response, and the same fifteen minutes indoors left it where it was.
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It separates two things usually bundled as one recommendation. If the setting carries more of the benefit than the movement does, then where you walk is advice in its own right.
How do we know?
Boere and colleagues used electroencephalography to probe cognitive function with an oddball task, before and after brief indoor and outdoor walks, in 30 participants averaging 21 years old.
What is still unknown
Thirty participants averaging 21 years old, and a single 15 minute walk, so this is an acute effect in young adults. Indoor and outdoor walks differ in light, air and view as well as in nature, none of which this design separates.
Learn something?
Where to next
What did researchers find in blood samples from perfectly healthy people?environment
How often do you need to get up from a desk for it to matter?walking
Does it matter when in the day you take your walk?walking