Effects of Aquatic Motor Intervention on Verbal Working Memory and Brain Activity—A Pilot Study

Aquatic motor activity (AMA) has been reported to affect motor and cognitive abilities. However, the neural mechanisms that may mediate this relationship have never been explored. The traditional functions of the cerebellum include involvement in coordination and balance. Recent studies have shown cerebellar activity during verbal working memory (VWM) tasks. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of AMA on VWM and changes in cerebellar activity. Twenty-four subjects were allocated to 1 month of AMA, on-land motor activity or nonmotor activity intervention. We examined the effects of intervention on VWM ability using the digit span task. Using magnetoencephalography, we measured changes in alpha power. Our results demonstrate that the AMA significantly improved VWM. Moreover, improved VWM was positively correlated with increased right cerebellar alpha power. These results support previous studies regarding the cerebellar region's role in VWM, and demonstrate that VWM can be improved by AMA.