Effects of National Gymnastics and Brain Gymnastics on Frontal Lobe Activity

Mental activities such as learning, thinking,memory, and creation are not limited to the brainfunction but involve both the brain and body. Forexample, to stimulate brain function, the bodyneeds to move(1). Body movement, which is acombination of internal and external activity ofthe nervous system, not only develops the neuralnetwork, internalizes learning in the neural net-work, and stimulates brain action but also con -tributes to cognitive function and emotionaldevelopment(2). Human movements mostly resultfrom brain activity, and those occurring afterexercise affect brain activity via diverse pathways.The frontal lobe plays an important role in highermental function and movement. It comprises theprefrontal lobe, which is related to performance ofhigh mental functions, and primary motor area,premotor area, supplemental motor area, frontaleye area, and motor speech area, which areinvolved in conscious movement(3). The frontal lobe is the center for processingactivities like willingness and planning to move,generation and selection of programs, their exe -cution order and implementation, output signals,and motor feedback modification order(4). Thefrontal lobe accounts for about 40% of humancerebral cortex(5), and the functions of the frontallobe may be largely classified into execution func -tion and motor function. Execution function refersto the ability to form abstract concepts, maintaincognition, organize information in occupationalmemory, selectively inhibit inappropriate respons -es, and behave in a socially acceptable manner(6).Motor function refers to the ability to inhibitreflective behaviors, plan and control complexmovements, and refine diverse movements. Toregulate such behaviors, the frontal lobeexchanges information with almost all cortical andsubcortical areas(7, 8). Such execution functionsof the frontal lobe are related to attention andconcentration(9). Attention is an action and a cognitive process ofselective concentration that subjectively or objec -tively ignores other sensory information whileselecting necessary information(10). Concentrationis a condition of focusing on and being engrossedin just one thing and, in many cases, refers to aconcept pertaining to the orientation of energy.