<b>Background/Objectives</b>: The global aging population faces rising rates of cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders. This review explores how physical exercise influences brain health in aging, focusing on mechanisms, moderators, and personalized strategies to enhance cognitive resilience. <b>Methods</b>: A narrative review methodology was applied. Literature published between 2015 and 2025 was retrieved from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science using keywords and MeSH terms related to exercise, cognition, neuroplasticity, aging, and dementia. Inclusion criteria targeted peer-reviewed original studies in humans aged ≥60 years or aged animal models, examining exercise-induced cognitive or neurobiological outcomes. <b>Results</b>: Evidence shows that regular physical activity improves executive function, memory, and processing speed in older adults, including those with mild impairment or genetic risk (e.g., APOE ε4). Exercise promotes neuroplasticity through increased levels of BDNF, IGF-1, and irisin, and enhances brain structure and functional connectivity. It also improves glymphatic clearance and modulates inflammation and circadian rhythms. Myokines act as messengers between muscle and brain, mediating many of these effects. Cognitive benefits vary with exercise type, intensity, and individual factors such as age, sex, chronotype, and baseline fitness. Combined interventions-physical, cognitive, nutritional-show synergistic outcomes. Digital tools (e.g., tele-exercise, gamification) offer scalable ways to sustain engagement and cognitive function. <b>Conclusions</b>: Physical exercise is a key non-pharmacological strategy to support cognitive health in aging. It acts through diverse systemic, molecular, and neurofunctional pathways. Tailored exercise programs, informed by individual profiles and emerging technologies, hold promise for delaying or preventing cognitive decline.
ences in circadian timing are taken into account. Rowing performance measured in the morning and the evening revealed significantly better performance in the morning for ECTs, although this difference was only ~ 1% [ 20 ]. These findings have been supported when evaluating diurnal variation in aerobic performance between ECTs and LCTs [ 21 ]. Peak aerobic performance for ECTs was found to be significantly earlier in the day (12:00 h), ~ 5/6 h after entrained waking, compared to that of LCTs whose peak occurred considerably later (20:00 h), ~ 11 h post entrained waking. Furthermore, while ECTs showed a 7.6% variation in performance across the day, the variation shown by LCTs was substantially greater at 26.2%. This study opened new insights into how individual differences, such as circadian phenotype, can impact on athletic performance and suggests that LCTs are more sensitive to diurnal fluctuations in performance. The prevalence of LCTs in elite sports is estimated to be ~ 10% [ 22 ], a value much lower than the estimated ~ 40% in the general population [ 23 ]. This observation could reflect that a lower number of LCTs are reaching national/international level, suggesting chronotype as a potential factor that determines the path to a successful athletic career.
It is well known that athletic performance is defined by the characteristics of a complex network of mental and physical elements. Whilst there is evidence for the effect of chronotype on aerobic performance, investigations on the effect of time of day on a range of performance elements for different chronotypes is still lacking. This presents an interesting and timely opportunity to study multiple measures of performance simultaneously to allow a more holistic view of the impact of chronotype on performance. Therefore, the present study was designed with the aim of providing a more rounded approach to the effect of chronotype on performance in healthy volunteers by combining cognitive and physical tasks acr
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