It is well known that physical exercise has beneficial effects on cognitive function in older adults. Recently, several physical exercise programs with virtual reality (VR) have been proposed to support physical exercise benefits. However, it is still unclear whether VR physical exercise (VR-PE) has positive effects on cognitive function in older adults. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review (SR) of the effects of VR-PE on cognitive function in older adults with and without cognitive decline. We used academic databases to search for research papers. The criteria were intervention study using any VR-PE, participants were older adults with and without mild cognitive decline (not dementia), and cognitive functions were assessed. We found that 6 of 11 eligible studies reported the significant benefits of the VR-PE on a wide range of cognitive functions in aging populations. The SR revealed that VR-PE has beneficial effects on the inhibition of executive functions in older adults with and without mild cognitive decline. Moreover, VR-PE selectively leads to improvements in shifting and general cognitive performance in healthy older adults. The SR suggests that VR-PE could be a successful approach to improve cognitive function in older adults with and without cognitive decline.

The effectiveness of cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I), a treatment method employed to reduce social anxiety (SA), has been examined. However, the neural correlates of CBM-I remain unclear, and we aimed to elucidate brain activities during intervention and activity changes associated with CBM-I effectiveness in a pre–post intervention comparison. Healthy participants divided into two groups (CBM, control) were scanned before, during and after intervention using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Ambiguous social situations followed by positive outcomes were repeatedly imagined by the CBM group during intervention, while half of the outcomes in the control group were negative. Whole-brain analysis revealed that activation of the somatomotor and somatosensory areas, occipital lobe, fusiform gyrus and thalamus during intervention was significantly greater in the CBM than in the control group. Furthermore, altered activities in the somatomotor and somatosensory areas, occipital lobe and posterior cingulate gyrus during interpreting ambiguous social situations showed a significant group × change in SA interaction. Our result suggests that when facing ambiguous social situations, positive imagery instilled by CBM-I is recalled, and interpretations are modified to contain social reward. These findings may help to suggest an alternative manner of enhancing CBM-I effectiveness from a cognitive-neuroscience perspective.

Zinc is a biologically essential element and involved in a wide range of cellular processes. Here, we investigated the associations of zinc levels in hair with brain activity during the n-back working memory task using functional magnetic resonance imaging, fractional anisotropy (FA) of diffusion tensor imaging, and cognitive differences in a study cohort of 924 healthy young adults. Our findings showed that greater hair zinc levels were associated with lower brain activity during working memory in extensive areas in the default mode network (i.e., greater task-induced deactivation) as well as greater FA in white matter areas near the hippocampus and posterior limbs of the internal capsule. These findings advance previous non-neuroimaging findings of zinc’s associations with excitability, excitability-associated disorders, and myelination.

This paper is aiming to present two studies investigating attitudes of older people towards different technologies to break their social isolation and investigating the impacts of Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) on physical and mental dimensions. The first study, based on focus groups conducted with 23 older people (aged from 65 to 93 years-old) allowed to collect attitudes and opinions of older people about different technologies to help them to break social isolation. The second study, based on an experiment conducted with 42 older people (aged from 63 to 85 years-old) allowed to investigate the impact of a specific Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) on physical and mental dimensions. The first study confirm that Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) can be a relevant digital tool for elderly people according to them, i.e., a digital tool perceived as useful, usable and acceptable. The second study demonstrates that use of a specific Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) system can reduce the perception of social isolation and can have positive impacts on physical dimensions such as the weight and the waist circumference. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.

Hemophilia poses a paradox: if physical activity is recommended for children with hemophilia for the sake of their health and to promote social inclusion, teachers, peers and sometimes parents are reluctant to involve them in physical activity at school. To support physical activity and sports for children with hemophilia, we created a video game called "HEMO-GAME" (https://hemogame.itch.io/play). This paper is aiming to present a quasi-experimental study to assess if the use of this video game has impacts on social inclusion for children with hemophilia. To assess social inclusion of twelve children with hemophilia recruited in this pilot study, two complementary tools have been used: The Playground Observation of Peer Engagement scale (POPE) and the coding social network centrality scale. Results show that successful initiations and positives responses for the child with hemophilia increase significantly in the classrooms where our video game HEMO-GAME has been used, while these indicators remain stable for the child with hemophilia in the classrooms where no specific educational intervention has been introduced. Moreover, social network centrality has two different ways: In the classrooms where our video game HEMO-GAME has been used, the child with hemophilia is more and more connected with his peers; In the classrooms where no specific educational intervention have been introduced, the child with hemophilia has always peripheral and moderate connections with his peers. Finally, the main objective of our work is to influence the mental representation of parents, peers and teachers regarding the importance of physical activity and sports at school for hemophiliacs by using a specific video game, to support social inclusion of children with specific needs. So the use of our video game called HEMO-GAME seems to have positive and significant impact on social interactions between children with hemophilia and their peers.

Objectives: We examined whether deep emotions, which were strongly felt but not always expressed, positively or negatively affect chronic fatigue in non-clinical young adults. Background and aims: Fatigue is a complex conscious sensation and emotion affected by related deep emotions. In daily activities, loneliness and hostility cause stress and cumulated stress leads to chronic