body mass index<\/a>, a measure of weight relative to height, the DEXA scanner measures and is able to categorize the body\u2019s mass in terms of lean tissue such as muscle tissue and organs, as well as fat, bone, and water. This enables the researchers to isolate body fat and lean tissue as variables and measure their individual impacts on inhibitory control.\u00a0<\/p>\nIt is the \u201cgold standard measure,\u201d Charles Hillman, Michele and Anthony Manganaro distinguished professor and director of the institute, said of the DEXA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Lauren](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/031023_MM_Lauren_Raine_009.jpg\")
Lauren Raine, an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences and the Department of Medical Sciences at the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n
![\"Charles](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Chuck-Hillman.jpg\")
12\/17\/25 \u2013 BOSTON, MA. \u2013 Charles Hillman, Manganaro Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health, poses for a portrait inside the ISEC building on Dec. 17, 2025. Photo by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University
\nLauren Raine and Charles Hillman of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Health measured the body composition, fitness levels and inhibitory control of more than 100 children who participated in the study. Photos by Matthew Modoono\/Northeastern University<\/p>\n
Hillman noted that measuring body composition with the scanner rather than using BMI is particularly useful for analyzing children who are still growing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome kids have spurts where they grow really tall over a certain amount of time, or they put on a lot of weight before they grow,\u201d Hillman said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a set trajectory, they\u2019re moving targets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Researchers including Lauren Raine, assistant professor of physical therapy, movement, and rehabilitation sciences and medical sciences, then evaluated each child\u2019s aerobic fitness, or how well the body uses oxygen to produce energy, through a graded exercise test. This test evaluates how efficient the participant is at using oxygen during exercise, calculating the amount of oxygen a participant inhales and how much carbon dioxide they exhale over the course of an increasingly strenuous session on a treadmill. Because the researchers were able to isolate each child\u2019s lean body mass, they were able to focus on the lean tissue and its ability to use oxygen and contribute to aerobic fitness rather than the whole body\u2019s use of oxygen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is that fat-free mass, muscle, is what is metabolically consuming the oxygen,\u201d when under maximum stress, Hillman explained. Fat, while a metabolically demanding tissue, is not consuming the oxygen in such a situation, he added.<\/p>\n
On the second day, the researchers evaluated the participants\u2019 inhibitory control.<\/p>\n
To test this, participants were given what researchers called a \u201cGo\u201d task and then a \u201cNo-Go\u201d task. The participants wore electroencephalogram headsets on their heads so that researchers could measure their brain activity during the tests.<\/p>\n
In the \u201cGo\u201d test, participants were shown either a picture of a tiger (80% of the time) or a lion (20% of the time) and asked to press a button when they saw the lion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we\u2019re using 9- and 10-year-olds, we\u2019re looking for something that\u2019s not going to give them any emotional response,\u201d Carlson said, laughing, while explaining the lion-and-tiger choice. \u201cIf you see the images of them, they\u2019re very friendly looking lions and tigers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The test was repeated over 100 times, effectively training the children to respond more automatically when shown a lion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
For the \u201cNo-Go\u201d test, the researchers switched the instructions, asking the participants to press a button when they saw the tiger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWithholding that button press when they see a lion is very hard because we both make it 80% of the time that they\u2019re pressing the button, and they had previously seen the lion and want to press the button for the lion,\u201d Hillman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The researchers found that children who had higher fitness levels, meaning their bodies used oxygen during heavy exercise more efficiently, were also more accurate in the No-Go test, demonstrating better inhibitory control. Children with increased fitness levels also dedicated more brain activity to both the Go and No-Go tests than children who were less fit, the researchers found.<\/p>\n
In contrast, children who had more body fat reacted more impulsively to the No-Go test but did not improve their accuracy compared with leaner children, according to the research.<\/p>\n
The results demonstrate that fitness and body composition each relate to inhibitory control uniquely and independently, Carlson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know being fit and being lean is important for all kids and it\u2019s good for your health and all those things, but we really don\u2019t know what that means for brain health in kids in terms of how they operate together or independent of one another,\u201d Hillman added. \u201cThis gets us closer to answering that question.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Look at a group of kids, and you\u2019re going to see many different shapes and sizes.\u00a0 Does it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[103509,1348,499,61,60,89,80,13467],"class_list":["post-583368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-center-for-cognitive-and-brain-health","tag-exercise","tag-fitness","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-research","tag-technology","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}