Types of leisure activities differentially impact the function and structure of the brain
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2020-12-21
Language
en
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
Leisure activity engagement has long been understood as an influential factor in the production and maintenance of cognitive performance. However, it remains unclear how to properly sub-group leisure activities so as to investigate and discern the differential cognitive impacts elicited by engaging in varying types of leisure activity. By using leisure activity data from the CRIq and grouping these data using factor-based analysis, I arrived at four unique leisure activity types, self-labeled: “responsibilities”, “entertainment”, “social/physical”, and “caretaking”. I then investigated the predictability of these groupings on behavioral and MRI measures by comparing group averages via statistical testing. Through these analyses, I found that this method of leisure activity grouping resulted in both significant cognitive performance and gray matter volume differences. This finding substantiates the need to further explore stricter categorical groupings of leisure activities in order to better understand their potential impact on the brain. In addition to this primary analysis, separating subject data by overall leisure activity engagement found multiple behavioral differences between higher and lower activity-engaging participants, but no structural brain differences were established in subsequent MRI analyses. An analysis of activities ranked by required cognitive effort found only one behavioral difference and analyses comparing activities categorized as “cognitive” or “social” resulted in no significant results.
Keywords: cognitive reserve, leisure activities, passive reserve, active reserve, cognitive trajectory
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen