Acute effects of aerobic exercise promote learning

Abstract

The benefits that physical exercise confers on cardiovascular health are well known, whereas the notion that physical exercise can also improve cognitive performance has only recently begun to be explored and has thus far yielded only controversial results. In the present study, we used a sample of young male subjects to test the effects that a single bout of aerobic exercise has on learning. Two tasks were run: the first was an orientation discrimination task involving the primary visual cortex, and the second was a simple thumb abduction motor task that relies on the primary motor cortex. Forty-four and forty volunteers participated in the first and second experiments, respectively. We found that a single bout of aerobic exercise can significantly facilitate learning mechanisms within visual and motor domains and that these positive effects can persist for at least 30 minutes following exercise. This finding suggests that physical activity, at least of moderate intensity, might promote brain plasticity. By combining physical activity–induced plasticity with specific cognitive training–induced plasticity, we favour a gradual up-regulation of a functional network due to a steady increase in synaptic strength, promoting associative Hebbian-like plasticity.

Locomotion Induces Stimulus-Specific Response Enhancement in Adult Visual Cortex

“…Therefore, steps to expand the capacity of the adult brain for plasticity are of great interest because of the relevance to recovery from CNS disease and injury and for maintaining cognitive ability well into the last days of life. Previous studies have increased adult plasticity by various invasive and noninvasive manipulations such as environmental enrichment (Greifzu et al, 2014), antidepressant treatment (Maya Vetencourt et al, 2008), inhibitory neuron transplant, (Southwell et al, 2010), and others (for review, see Espinosa and Stryker, 2012). We have shown that exposure to high-contrast visual stimuli during locomotion improved recovery of visual cortical responsiveness from amblyopia (Kaneko and Stryker 2014) and enhanced the plasticity induced in adult cortex by monocular deprivation (Fu et al, 2015).…”

The Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Interventions for Improvement of Neurocognitive Performance After Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review

“…Also, it is unclear whether the benefits in performance observed are due to VR itself or purely due to exercise. There are well-documented effects of cardiovascular exercise upon cognition, thought to occur via upregulation of plasticity related proteins such as BDNF 30,31 . In order to determine whether VR accounts for any of this effect, a group of TBI survivors subjected to a non-VR exercise intervention is required.…”

Locomotion induces stimulus-specific response enhancement in adult visual cortex

“…It has been shown that a beneficial effect of acute aerobic exercise in young human volunteers (improvement on an orientation discrimination task after 30 min on a stationary bicycle) can last at least 30 min after stopping the exercise (Perini et al, 2016). To test whether locomotor activity confers such benefit in mice, we allowed animals to run for 1 hr while viewing a grey screen and then returned them to the home cage and exposed them to a high contrast visual stimulus immediately thereafter.…”