Movement and Cognition Across the Lifespan: Integrating Development, Health, and Built Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Movement is not ancillary to cognition; it is a core driver of perceptual, affective, and executive functions across the human lifespan. Advances in developmental neuroscience, ecological psychology, and embodied cognition converge on the view that sensorimotor activity shapes neural architecture, supports learning, and modulates emotional and psychiatric well-being. This Special Issue invites multidisciplinary contributions that examine how movement influences cognitive development, performance, resilience, and decline across diverse populations and contexts.

In early human development, postural control, locomotion, gesture, and object exploration scaffold the emergence of language, attention, and social cognition. In educational settings, embodied and neuroeducation-based approaches demonstrate that movement enriches memory consolidation, conceptual understanding, and self-regulation. In athletic and performance sciences, training-related adaptations reveal how complex motor coordination and perceptual-motor coupling refine decision-making, anticipation, and expertise.

Clinical and rehabilitation sciences, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, sports medicine, psychiatry, and speech-language sciences, show that targeted motor interventions can enhance functional connectivity, executive function, mental health, and participation. In research on aging, gait variability, balance, and mobility serve as sensitive biomarkers of cognitive trajectories, with movement-based interventions delaying or mitigating decline. Emerging research on neuroarchitecture illustrates how spatial design, affordances, and sensorimotor engagement within built environments shape cognitive load, navigation, stress responses, and social interaction.

This Special Issue aims to synthesize these parallel fields by highlighting theoretical advances, empirical findings, and translational applications linking motor behavior with cognitive outcomes. We welcome original research articles and reviews, meta-analyses, theoretical contributions, and methodological innovations. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, sensorimotor development, embodied learning, motor-cognitive training, neuroplasticity, environmental affordances, neurorehabilitation, psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions, and lifespan mobility-cognition coupling.

By bringing together human development, sports science, rehabilitation, neuroeducation, neuroarchitecture, psychiatry, and allied health disciplines, this Special Issue will advance the integrated science of movement and cognition to inform practice, policy, and design.

The Special Issue is cooperating with the 2026 Brain, Body and Cognition conference, which is being partnered by Jesus College of Cambridge University, and will take place at Cambridge University, from 4–6 October 2026. We look forward to welcoming you to this International Conference and cordially invite you to contribute to this Special Issue. 

Prof. Dr. Gerry Leisman
Dr. Michal Gath-Morad
Prof. Dr. Koen Steemers
Guest Editors

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