The IGNITE trial: Participant recruitment lessons prior to SARS-CoV-2.

Full and diverse participant enrollment is critical to the success and generalizability of all large-scale Phase III trials. Recruitment of sufficient participants is among the most significant challenges for many studies. The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic has further changed and challenged the landscape for clinical trial execution, including screening and randomization. The Investigating Gains in Neurocognition in an Intervention Trial of Exercise (IGNITE) study has been designed as the most comprehensive test of aerobic exercise effects on cognition and brain health. Here we assess recruitment into IGNITE prior to the increased infection rates in the United States, and examine new challenges and opportunities for recruitment with a goal of informing the remaining required recruitment as infection containment procedures are lifted. The results may assist the design and implementation of recruitment for future exercise studies, and outline opportunities for study design that are flexible in the face of emerging threats.

Moving fast, thinking fast: The relations of physical activity levels and bouts to neuroelectric indices of inhibitory control in preadolescents.

BACKGROUND: Structured vigorous physical activity (VPA) can improve cognitive control in children, but studies relating daily physical activity (PA) to cognitive control have yielded conflicting findings. While objectively measured daily PA summarizes all occurrences of PA within a registered period, a minimum duration of continuous PA is required for registration of a PA bout. Because brief bouts of high-intensity PA can account for a large proportion of children's daily activity-related energy expenditure, this study assessed whether daily and bouted VPA were selectively related to cognitive control in preadolescents relative to other PA intensities. METHODS: A total of 75 children between the ages of 8 and 10 years (49% girls) wore an ActiGraph wGT3X+ on the hip for 7 days. The acceleration signal from the vertical axis was summarized over 1 s, 5 s, and 15 s epochs. Daily and bouted moderate PA, moderate-to-vigorous PA, and VPA were measured. PA bouts were expressed as the frequency and time spent in 2 different continuous PA bouts, one lasting ≥10 s and the other lasting ≥30 s at a given intensity. Inhibitory control was assessed using behavioral responses to a modified flanker task (mean reaction time (RTmean) and accuracy). Attentional resource allocation and cognitive processing speed were measured using the amplitude and latency of the P3 component of event-related brain potentials, respectively. Associations between PA, behavioral indices of inhibitory control, P3 amplitude, and latency were assessed using hierarchical regression models. RESULTS: Daily VPA was not related to RTmean or accuracy on either congruent or incongruent trials. In contrast, more time spent in VPA bouts lasting ≥30 s predicted shorter P3 latency across epochs and flanker congruencies (all ß ≤ -0.24, all p ≤ 0.04). The associations between shorter P3 latency and the time spent in moderate-to-vigorous PA bouts lasting ≥30 s were less consistent and largely limited to congruent trials (congruent: ß (-0.31, -0.34)). No significant associations were observed upon correction for false discovery rate. CONCLUSION: The pattern of uncorrected associations aligns with the dose-response literature and suggests that brief VPA bouts may yield the greatest benefits to cognitive processing speed in preadolescents. Future studies using measures of brain structure and function are needed to understand the mechanisms linking bouted VPA to neurocognitive function during childhood.

Looking at the Process: Examining Creative and Artistic Thinking in Fashion Designers on a Reality Television Show.

We examine creativity from a qualitative process rather than a quantitative product perspective. Our focus is on "habits of mind" (thinking dispositions) used during the creative process, and the categories we used were those of the eight Studio Habits of Mind observed in visual arts classrooms (Hetland et al., 2007, 2013). Our source of data was footage from a popular reality television show, Project Runway, in which nascent fashion designers are given garment design challenges. An entire season of the show (14 episodes) was transcribed and coded for the presence of eight Studio Habits of Mind. We found abundant evidence of all eight of these thinking dispositions in all portions of the show. We argue that the creative thinking occurring during fashion design bears strong resemblances to that which occurs in the art studio-classroom. Qualitatively created frameworks, like those of the Studio Habits of Mind, can be used to inform our understanding of creative behavior in various disciplines.