Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Alejo Barbuzza | email: barbuzza.alejo@gmail.com
Alejo Barbuzza 1°2°, Pedro Benedetti 1°2°, Celina Goyeneche 1° 2°, Fabricio Ballarini 1°2°
1° Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, Av. Madero 399, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina
2° Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia Prof. E. De Robertis (IBCN), Facultad de Medicina, UBA-CONICET, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Currently, it has been widely proven that physical activity (PA) not only generates benefits on physical fitness, but also on cognition. Nevertheless different results have been observed in memory. While some research shows a positive effect of PA on different types of memory, others find no such effect. However, it should be noted that none of them have found negative effects. In addition, there are few investigations carried out outside the laboratory in ecological and natural environments. For this reason, the objective of this work is to try to elucidate the possible effects of PA on the consolidation and retrieval of a graphic memory in a school context. For this we used the Rey figure as a memory paradigm, Alternative Uses Test for creativity and the physical education classes of secondary school students as a modulator for these processes. When the physical education class took place immediately before the retrieval of the Rey figure and the creativity task, it was observed that this group improved their performance in both tests compared to the control group that did not perform PA. However, when the PA was separated one hour before or after the learning of the Rey figure, no improvement was observed in the performance of the long-term memory test (testing 48 hours after the acquisition).