PONE-D-22-08574Meta-analysis on the Effects of Moderate-intensity Exercise Intervention on Executive Functioning in ChildrenPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 05 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Andrew Philip Lavender, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The conclusions of this manuscript are uninterpretable to me without

1. A Pub Med search

2. Use of PRISMA guidelines

3. A greater emphasis on the strengths of limitations of meta-analysis.

4. A greater emphasis on bias and confounding without undue emphasis on the P values

Reviewer #2: This topic has practical significance, the demonstration process needs to be further improved, and the conclusion needs to be further considered. The following opinions are put forward:

1. Section Literature quality evaluation：“(9 points 5 points, 7 points to get 4 points, 5 articles 3 points)”

Please clarify your meaning.

2. Section Data analysis: “As an index to determine whether there was any heterogeneity between the studies, the range of I2 was from 0% to 100%, and the bigger I2 was, the greater the heterogeneity was. I2<50% indicated a low heterogeneity between studies, a fixed effect model was adopted to merge the effect size; I2≥50% indicated a high heterogeneity between studies, a random effect model was adopted to merge the effect size, and sub-group analysis was performed”

Please add references.

3. Section Basic characteristics of included studies: “A total of 21 literature were included in this study, which were all published in core journals, covering 30 studies. Among them, there were 3 literature (Chen et al.[11], Tomporowski et al. [24], Yin et al.[25], Yan et al.[33]) that included 2 studies, 1 literature (Yan et al.[14]) that included 3 studies, and 1 literature (Yin et al.[19]) that included 4 studies. A total of 2,466 subjects (1,265 in experimental group and 1,201 in control group), aged 6~12 years old, were included.”

1)How to define “core journals”?

2)The language expression is ambiguous, please clarify the relationship “A total of 21 literature” and “covering 30 studies”.

3) “Among them, there were 3 literature (Chen et al.[11], Tomporowski et al. [24], Yin et al.[25], Yan et al.[33]) that included 2 studies,” The author proposed “3 references”, and the results were followed by 4 references, Please check.

4)The author proposed ‘A total of 2,466 subjects’, but inconsistent with the total sample size in Table 1, Please check.

4. Section Effect of exercise intervention on executive function: “indicating a statistically significant increase in refresh function in children after exercise intervention compared to the control group” and “indicating a statistically significant increase in conversion function in children after exercise intervention”.

“after exercise intervention” should be revised to “experimental group”

5. Section Basic characteristics of included studies

The amount of physical activity in the control group should be clearly described.

6. Please check the number of references in Table 1 and Table 4.

7. The World Health Organization has proposed the recommended amount of physical activity for children, which requires that the health benefits of long-term exercise should be better. However, the conclusion of this study recommends that 8-12 weeks of moderate intensity exercise has a good effect on the improvement of executive function, which is in contradiction with the health benefits of long-term exercise. Please draw this conclusion carefully. Please pay attention to this contradiction in the discussion and explain it.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-22-08574R1Meta-analysis on the Effects of Moderate-intensity Exercise Intervention on Executive Functioning in ChildrenPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. The original editor was not available and I took over the processes. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

I read your revision. I can see the importance of your report. I, however, agree with the first reviewer that the quality of the writing is not good and there are many unclear aspects that makes it very hard to understand the content. For example

1. your English search terms included "Primary student" which does not have any particular meaning in English. Or "Medium intensity" which is wrong in English and it has to be "Moderate intensity". These are very important to be clarified. Subsequently you mention that "The search strategy is a combination form of separate and mutual, supplemented by literature tracking." What does this mean? You might want to include your search query for clarification (for both Chinese and English searches); it could be as a supplementary document if it is long. 
2. In the first glance I did not understand what you mean by "refresh" or "conversion" function. I noticed you cited two articles [1-2]. I looked at the review article to see if those words were used. I couldn't find these words. You need to use conventional terms that researchers are familiar with. You need to be clearer in terms of executive functions you looked at such as working memory or inhibition.
3. I still believe you have not responded satisfactorily to the comments of the reviewers, in particular reviewer 1. For example, I do not see much discussion on the "location" in the document. 
4. In table 1, column Control Group, you mention "regular physical training". What are these? How do these differ with the physical activity in the Experimental Group? 
5. There are many grammatical or potentially conceptual errors in the writing. I am not first English language speaker. But I noticed many grammatical errors.

Minor points:

1. Perhaps you want to change the term "literature" to "publication" or "article" or "study".
2. Sometimes you say "execution" and sometimes you say "executive". 
3. Am I right that all the items in Table 4 include an asterisk? If so, then you don't need to have the asterisk. You can simply mention "P<0.00001" in the caption or notes of the figure

I am giving you one more chance to revise the document and resubmit. I would suggest you to ask an English speaking person read your document carefully in terms of concept and language. Somebody who is not necessarily in the field to give you feedback on the readability of the text in addition to correct the grammatical errors. I will not send the document to be reviewed again and will make the final decision myself. But I would expect a substantial change. Thanks.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 10 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Amir-Homayoun Javadi, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I find it impossible to interpret these results without a clear statement of the type of study design of each component in the meta analysis as well as the results of the individual trials.

I am unclear whether there is effect modification by country in which the individual study was performed.

I also believe that whatever the answers to the above mentioned queries the results should be interpreted as hypothesis generating not testing

Reviewer #2: The author has carefully revised the questions raised, and the quality of the paper has been greatly improved.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Attachments.docx

Meta-analysis on the Effects of Moderate-intensity Exercise Intervention on Executive Functioning in Children

PONE-D-22-08574R2

Dear Dr. Xu,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Amir-Homayoun Javadi, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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