Brain endurance training improves cognitive and physical performance of healthy older women

A recent study of healthy older women with sedentary lifestyles found that brain endurance training—combining cognitive tasks with physical exercise—improved both cognitive and physical performance. Participants who underwent this training outperformed a control group that received no intervention, both when they were well-rested and when mentally fatigued. The study was published in Psychology of Sport & Exercise.

As people age, their cognitive and physical abilities tend to decline. Processing speed slows down, making it take longer to complete tasks or respond to new information. Working memory—the ability to hold and manipulate information temporarily—also tends to deteriorate. Some aspects of episodic memory, such as recalling specific events or names, may become less reliable. In contrast, semantic memory (general knowledge and vocabulary) often remains stable or even improves with age. Older adults frequently compensate for cognitive decline by relying more on experience, routines, and learned strategies.

Mental fatigue—a psychological state resulting from prolonged and demanding cognitive activity—can worsen age-related cognitive impairments. Some studies suggest it may also diminish physical performance in older adults.

Study author Jesús Díaz-García and his colleagues set out to examine whether brain endurance training could improve the cognitive and physical performance of older adults more effectively than physical exercise alone or no training at all. They also investigated whether participants who completed brain endurance training would be more resilient to the effects of mental fatigue.

The study involved 24 healthy older women between the ages of 65 and 78, all living in a rural town in Spain. None of the participants reported engaging in regular physical activity. The researchers randomly assigned the participants to one of three groups: a brain endurance training group, a physical exercise group, and a control group that received no intervention.

The brain endurance training group completed 20 minutes of cognitive tasks, followed by 20 minutes of resistance exercises and 25 minutes of endurance exercise. The physical exercise group completed the same physical exercises but without the cognitive tasks. Both groups trained three times per week for eight weeks.

Participants completed assessments of physical performance (including the chair-stand test, arm-curl test, and walk test) and cognitive performance (using the Brief Stroop task and Brief Psychomotor Vigilance task) at four time points: the start of the study, after four weeks, after eight weeks (the end of training), and after twelve weeks. Each assessment was conducted twice—once when participants were fresh, and once after they were mentally fatigued. To induce mental fatigue, participants completed a 30-minute incongruent Stroop test before the assessments.

Results showed that both exercise groups outperformed the control group on physical and cognitive tasks at weeks 4 and 8. These improvements were evident both when participants were fresh and when they were fatigued. Notably, the brain endurance training group performed better than the physical exercise group only in the mentally fatigued condition.

“The present study demonstrated that BET [brain endurance training], which combines cognitive and exercise training, enhanced cognitive and physical performance in older adults. These enhancements were observed for attention and executive function cognitive operations as well as endurance and resistance exercise activities,” the study authors wrote.

“Importantly, these BET-related enhanced performances were seen relative to both no training (mostly) and exercise training (sometimes). Finally, we confirmed that BET developed resilience to mental fatigue and recalibrated the relationship between exercise and perceived effort.”

The study sheds light on the effects of brain endurance training. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a very small group of older women living sedentary lifestyles. Results on other demographic groups might not be identical.

The paper, “Brain endurance training improves sedentary older adults’ cognitive and physical performance when fresh and fatigued,” was authored by Jesús Díaz-García, Tomás García-Calvo, and Christopher Ring.