Students living with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often need accommodations in school, such as extended assignment deadlines or quieter spaces to complete exams.

But a potential proactive intervention being investigated by Erin Panda and her team may “flip educational accommodations on their head,” she says, by boosting students’ ability to focus, ignore distractions and remember the task at hand.

“There is a growing research base about how exercise supports the very cognitive skills that are hard for people who are further along on the ADHD continuum,” says the Brock Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies and Director of the University’s Developmental Neuroscience Lab. “And it makes sense intuitively that for someone who tends to be restless, hyperactive or inattentive that exercise might help those symptoms.”

Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies Erin Panda, who is heading a study examining how exercise affects students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, is one of 14 Brock researchers awarded funding from the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Panda and her interdisciplinary team will be exploring the impacts of exercise on the brain’s executive functioning network thanks to an Insight Development Grant from the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Engineering Research Council (SSHRC).

The results of SSHRC’s Insight Grant and Insight Development Grant programs were announced on Tuesday, July 21, with 14 Brock University researchers receiving a total of $2 million for their projects.

“SSHRC’s support for our scholars’ projects speaks to the talent of the Brock University research community,” says Vice-President, Research Tim Kenyon. “These projects will make significant inroads in the areas of children’s development, the application of artificial intelligence and creating a safer society, among other impacts.”

Member of Parliament for St. Catharines Chris Bittle says the wider community — and the country — benefits from innovative Brock research.

“The Government of Canada is deeply committed to building a vibrant, healthy and prosperous country by supporting research that increases knowledge and understanding about people and the society in which they live,” he says. “Brock researchers’ expertise and the range of subjects they are exploring through their projects are helping to advance this goal of creating a caring, flourishing Canada.”

For their project, Panda and her team are recruiting undergraduate university students who self-identify as being at various points on the ADHD spectrum. Participants will undergo a 30-minute session of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise during one visit to the lab and sit quietly reading or chatting for 30 minutes during the other visit.

After each session, the researchers will measure the students’ brain responses while they engage in tasks that require sustained attention, focus, working memory and creativity.

They aim to determine whether exercise boosts executive function and creativity and if the impact is greatest for those who report more ADHD-like traits in their day-to-day lives.

“I’m excited about the potential of highlighting an empowering, healthy strategy that gives people a sense of agency and shows them they can do something to help their learning instead of focusing solely on their deficits,” Panda says.

Her team includes retired Professor of Psychology Sidney Segalowitz, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics William Marshall, Professor of Child and Youth Studies Ayda Tekok-Kilic, Associate Professor of Health Sciences Rebecca MacPherson, Professors of Kinesiology Barket Falk and Panagiota Klentrou, Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies Matthew Kwan, and Executive Director of Student Wellness and Accessibility Services William Helmeczi.

Brock researchers awarded Insight Grants include:

• Sandra Bosacki, Professor of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education — “Adolescents’ Kind Mindset: Linking Mentalization, Self-processes and Prosocial Development”
• Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities — “Haunting Traces: Constructing Futurities”
• Martin Danahay, Professor of English Language and Literature in the Faculty of Humanities — “Drug Wars: Power, Violence and Discrimination from Opium to Fentanyl”
• Waqar Nadeem, Professor of Marketing in the Goodman School of Business — “Creating Value with Digital Twins: Opportunities and Risks for Business Renewal”
• Michael Naraine, Associate Professor of Sport Management in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences — “Examining the Social and Economic Impacts of Modern Sports Gambling in Canada”
• Rebecca Raby, Professor of Child and Youth Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences — “Living in a Shelter: Children’s Experiences of Being Homeless with their Families”
• Colin Rose, Associate Professor of History in the Faculty of Humanities — “Mapping Crime and Conflict in Early Modern Italy”
• Dawn Zinga, Professor of Child and Youth Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences, — “Perfect Performance: Contextual Pressure to Perform Perfectly, Injury Risk, Artistic Expression and Wellbeing in Female Competitive Dancers”

Brock researchers awarded Insight Development Grants include:

• Abdul Rehman Ashraf, Professor of Marketing in the Goodman School of Business — “AI Companions at a Crossroads: Implications for Human Well-being”
• Fernando Avila, Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Social Sciences — “Fragile Reforms: The Rise and Decline of a Penal Experiment in a Latin American Prison Town”
• Christiana Okyere Folson, Assistant Professor of Child and Youth Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences — “Exploring the Needs of Racialized and Newcomer Caregivers Raising Children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the Niagara Region of Canada”
• Danielle Dunwoody, Assistant Professor of Nursing in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences — “Navigating Disability Disclosure in Health Professional Education and Regulation: A Scoping Review with Key Partner Perspectives.”
• Erin Panda, Associate Professor of Child and Youth Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences — “Exercise as an Educational Intervention? Examining Which Students Benefit Most from Exercise’s Boost to Executive Function”
• Leila Tahmooresnejad, Assistant Professor of Information Systems in the Goodman School of Business — “When Sustainability Enters the Conversation: Tracing Environmental Blind Spots in AI Research”
• Kai-Yu Wang, Professor of Marketing in the Goodman School of Business — “How Artificial Intelligence Influences Consumers: Transparency, Emotion, and Culture in Advertising”