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Fig. 2 | BMC Medicine

Fig. 2

From: Associations between grip strength, brain structure, and mental health in > 40,000 participants from the UK Biobank

Fig. 2

Associations between handgrip strength and 30 mental health-related outcomes. a Of the 30 behavioral phenotypes, 27 showed significant association with grip strength and in the expected direction after controlling for confounders: stronger muscular strength was associated with better cognitive performance, higher life satisfaction, greater subjective well-being, and lower depression and anxiety symptoms. Significance is shown as -log10(FDR corrected P-value) and a value above 1.30 is considered statistically significant (-log10(0.05) = 1.30). b When the analyses were stratified by gender, a respective of 29 and 20 behavioral outcomes showed significant association with grip strength in females and males. c Three examples of the longitudinal association between grip strength and behavioral outcomes were revealed by a classic two-wave cross-lagged panel model. For the reaction time test, we observed a significant bi-directional association, i.e., stronger grip strength at baseline was related to better performance on reaction time at the 9-year follow-up, while the reverse was weaker but also significant (FDR corrected P < 10−4); for pairs matching, greater grip strength predicts higher task performance, while the reverse was nonsignificant; For neuroticism, a higher neuroticism score was associated with weaker grip strength measured 9 years later, but the reverse was nonsignificant

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