Table 1_Effects of AI-assisted wushu training on mental health, cognitive performance, and cardiovascular function in university students: a quasi-experimental study.xlsx

Background<p>In this quasi-experimental study, we examined whether AI-assisted wushu (Chinese martial arts) routine training, delivered through camera-based immediate post-performance movement feedback, was associated with greater improvements in mental health, cognitive performance, and cardiovascular function than conventional wushu instruction among university students.</p>Methods<p>A campus-based, two-group, quasi-experimental pre–post design with non-randomized allocation by course section was conducted over 6 weeks among 298 physical education undergraduates (n = 149 per group).

Outcomes included perceived stress, anxiety, psychological well-being, and emotion regulation (mental health); Stroop, digit-span, n-back, and Trail-Making Test performance and a composite executive-function index (cognitive performance); and resting heart rate, blood pressure, heart-rate variability, vital capacity, and heart-rate recovery (cardiovascular function). Post-intervention group differences were modeled with ANCOVA adjusting for baseline scores, age, sex, and BMI; associations between movement-quality gain and outcome change were examined with Pearson correlation and covariate-adjusted bootstrapped mediation, with false discovery rate correction applied.</p>Results<p>Groups did not differ significantly at baseline (all p > 0.07).