Gender differences in the relationship of lung function and response times during verbal performance in healthy adolescents

Abstract

Abstract The association between lung function and cognition has been examined in adulthood and in old age, but few studies have investigated the relationship in early life periods such as in adolescence. Because development in adolescence involves remarkable physiological and psychological changes, it is important to explore closely the relationship between bodily functions and cognition. This study evaluated the lung-cognition association in 49 healthy teenagers between the ages of 16-18 years, and gender differences were also investigated. We measured Vital Capacity (VC) and cognitive functioning. As part of the cognitive evaluation, verbal abilities were assessed through three different tasks: phonemic verbal fluency, semantic verbal fluency and reading of short text. On each of the verbal tasks inspiratory measures were acquired during execution of the tasks. To evaluate the lung-cognition association, we used two approaches: First, we correlated the separate performances of cognitive abilities and lung function. Secondly, we correlated performance on verbal tasks with inspiratory airflow parameters (duration, peak and volume) measured during the response time of each of the verbal tests. Results showed restricted gender differences in neuropsychological tasks, while more evident gender differences were found in VC. Correlational results showed that inspiratory airflow measures were especially associated with phonemic fluency tasks, which measures executive functions. These findings suggest that abilities associated with performance in phonemic fluency may require more oxygen usage for an optimal performance. Keywords: Adolescence, gender differences, inspiratory airflow, lung function, cognitive abilities, executive function, verbal abilities, verbal fluency, response time, processing spee