A single bout of resistance exercise can enhance episodic memory performance

Abstract

Acute aerobic exercise can be beneficial to episodic memory. This benefit may occur because exercise produces a similar physiological response as physical stressors. When administered during consolidation, acute stress, both physical and psychological, consistently enhances episodic memory, particularly memory for emotional materials. Here we investigated whether a single bout of resistance exercise performed during consolidation can produce episodic memory benefits 48 hours later. We used a one-leg knee extension/flexion task for the resistance exercise. To assess the physiological response to the exercise, we measured salivary alpha amylase (a biomarker of central norepinephrine), heart rate, and blood pressure. To test emotional episodic memory, we used a remember-know recognition memory paradigm with equal numbers of positive, negative, and neutral IAPS images as stimuli. The group that performed the exercise, the active group, had higher overall recognition accuracy than the group that did not exercise, the passive group. We found a robust effect of valence across groups, with better performance on emotional items as compared to neutral items and no difference between positive and negative items. This effect changed based on the physiological response to the exercise. Within the active group, participants with a high physiological response to the exercise were impaired for neutral items as compared to participants with a low physiological response to the exercise. Our results demonstrate that a single bout of resistance exercise performed during consolidation can enhance episodic memory and that the effect of valence on memory depends on the physiological response to the exercise.

A single bout of resistance exercise improves memory consolidation and increases the expression of synaptic proteins in the hippocampus

“…Here, we demonstrated for the first time that acute resistance exercise improves memory consolidation in rats. These results are in accordance with a clinical study that observed memory improvement following a single bout of resistance exercise (Weinberg et al, ). However, it is important to note that this intervention was able to enhance contextual but not tone fear conditioning, indicating that a single bout of resistance exercise can selectively engage functional changes in the hippocampal neuronal circuits associated with a CFC task.…”

“…Previous human studies have demonstrated that acute resistance exercise has a positive effect on cognition and improves working memory, quality of planning, and other aspects of executive function (Chang and Etnier, ; Chang et al, ; Tsai et al, ). A recent work reported that a single bout of resistance exercise performed after learning improved memory consolidation (Weinberg et al, ). In general, it is assumed that newly learned information is initially in a labile state but, over time, becomes stable.…”

Physical activity and exercise attenuate neuroinflammation in neurological diseases

“…Since exercise enhances the expression of growth and neurotrophic factors, which are critical for learning and memory, it is not surprising that even a single bout of exercise can lead to improvements in these CNS functions (Weinberg et al, 2014). Piao et al showed that following traumatic brain injury, long-term exercise can improve cognitive function in rodents measured by the Morris water maze (MWM) test up to 2.3 fold above their low activity counterparts (Piao et al, 2013).…”

Effect of Acute Moderate-Intensity Exercise on Autobiographical Episodic Memory and Semantic Memory

“…However, such within-subject designs will need to be carefully designed to ensure that the different semantic tasks (e.g., vegetables, animals) across the visits are of equal difficulty. Further, an interesting area to consider would be whether exercise modality has a unique effect on autobiographic episodic and semantic memory, as there is some evidence to suggest a beneficial effect of, for example, resistance exercise on memory function [31,32]. Our current findings suggest that acute exercise is not sufficient to enhance autobiographic episodic and semantic memory.…”