Moderating and mediation analysis
CRF
CRF

We adopted the PROCESS Macro for SPSS [We also used the PROCESS macro to perform mediation analyses to assess whether a change in the global mean DC strength estimated over the individual sFCN mediated the cognitive benefits observed in the AE and COMB groups [Complementarily, our mediation analysis was also driven by the outcome of the analysis over the sFCN difference maps (post-test minus pre-test) where the comparison between pre-post periods for each active group (AE-pre vs AE-post; CCT-pre vs CCT-post; COMB-pre vs COMB-post) revealed a subnetwork of functional connections that increased (positive network) or decreased (negative) due to the intervention. The mean DC strength of either the positive or negative subnetwork acted as mediators.We also explored if the outcome of the analysis over the sFCN difference maps (post-test minus pre-test) mediated the relationship between the changes in the CRF and changes in the cognitive measures targeting on the Executive Function (Working Memory) and the Attention-Speed (Attention).For these mediation analyses, we created a treatment variable (condition vs control) as the independent variable, change in cognition for those functions that showed significant intervention-related changes as the dependent variable, and changes in the CRF, the global mean DC strengths and the mean DC strength of the positive/negative subnetwork have been the mediators controlling for baseline performance score, age, sex, and years of education. These analyses were computed with bias-corrected bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals (CIs) based on 5000 bootstrap samples. The significance was indicated if the CIs in path AB did not overlap with 0 [