Behavioral and neural evidence of the rewarding value of exercise behaviors: A systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundIn a time of physical inactivity pandemic, attempts to better understand the factors underlying the regulation of exercise behavior are important. The dominant neurobiological approach to exercise behavior considers physical activity to be a reward. However, negative affective responses during exercise challenge this idea. Objective Our objective was to systematically review studies testing the automatic reactions triggered by stimuli associated with different types of exercise behavior (e.g., physical activity, sedentary behaviors) and energetic cost variations (e.g., decreased energetic cost, irrespective of the level of physical activity). Methods Two authors systematically searched, screened, extracted, and analyzed data from articles in the MEDLINE database. Results We included 26 studies. Three outcomes of automatic processes were tested: Affective reactions, attentional capture, and approach tendencies. Behavioral results show that physical activity can become attention-grabbing, automatically trigger positive affect, and elicit approach behaviors. These automatic reactions explain and predict exercise behaviors. However, the use of a wide variety of measures prevents drawing solid conclusions about the specific effects of automatic processes. Brain imaging results are scarce but show that stimuli associated with physical activity and, to a lesser extent, sedentary behaviors activate regions involved in reward processes. Studies investigating the rewarding value of behaviors driving energetic cost variations such as behaviors minimizing energetic cost are lacking. Conclusion Reward is an important factor in exercise behavior. The literature based on the investigation of automatic behaviors seems in line with the suggestion that physical activity is rewarding, at least for physically active individuals. Results suggest that sedentary behaviors could also be rewarding, although this evidence remains weak due to a lack of investigations. Finally, from an evolutionary perspective, behaviors minimizing energetic cost are likely to be rewarding. However, no study has investigated this hypothesis. In sum, additional studies are required to establish a strong and complete framework of the reward processes underlying automatic exercise behavior.Key points -Behavioral and brain imaging studies using different outcomes of automatic behavior show that physical activity and, to a weaker extent, sedentary behaviors are rewarding. -Behaviors minimizing energetic cost have been essential to evolutionary survival and are likely to be rewarding. However, experimental evidence is still lacking. -The dominant neuropsychological approaches to exercise behavior are incomplete, which may partly explain our current inability to counteract the pandemic of physical inactivity..CC-BY 4.0 International license not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. It is made available under aThe copyright holder for this preprint (which was . http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/211425 doi: bioRxiv preprint first posted online Rewardi...

Avoiding sedentary behaviors requires more cortical resources than avoiding physical activity: An EEG study

“…These results suggest that higher levels of control were activated to counteract a general trend to approach sedentary behaviors. This finding is consistent with the proposition presented in our recent systematic review contending that behaviors minimizing energetic cost are rewarding and, as such, are automatically sought (Cheval et al, 2018). This proposition also concurs with previous work claiming that individuals possess a general trend to conserve energy and avoid unnecessary physical exertion Lieberman, 2015), thereby explaining the negative affect that could be experienced during vigorous exercise (Brand & Ekkekakis, 2018;Ekkekakis, 2017;Ekkekakis, Parfitt, & Petruzzello, 2011) and the general evaluation of physical effort as a cost (Croxson, Walton, O'Reilly, Behrens, & Rushworth, 2009;Shadmehr, Huang, & Ahmed, 2016).…”

“…Specifically, we hypothesized that in individual intending to be physically active, like all participants of the current study, sensory integration is shorter (i.e., larger positive deflection and earlier LRP onset latency) when they are asked to approach physical activity and avoid sedentary behaviors compared to approach sedentary behaviors and avoid physical activity (Hypothesis 2). Additionally, consistent with recent conceptual and review articles suggesting that individuals tend to save energy and avoid unnecessary physical exertion (Cheval, et al, 2018;Lee, Emerson, & Williams, 2016;Lieberman, 2015), lower reaction times when approaching physical activity and avoiding sedentary behaviors should require more cortical resources. Accordingly, we hypothesized higher attentional processing (larger P1 and late N1 amplitudes), conflict monitoring (larger early N1 and late N1 amplitudes), and inhibition (larger N2 amplitude) when approaching physical activity compared to sedentary behaviors and when avoiding sedentary behaviors compared to physical activity (Hypothesis 3).…”

“…While the dichotomization proposed by dual-process models has been subject to debate (Melnikoff & Bargh, 2018), this pragmatic simplification has facilitated the integration of findings from heterogeneous concepts and experimental designs. An increasing number of studies show that automatic reactions, such as attentional capture (Berry, 2006;Berry, Spence, & Stolp, 2011;Calitri, Lowe, Eves, & Bennett, 2009), affective reactions (Antoniewicz & Brand, 2016;Bluemke, Brand, Schweizer, & Kahlert, 2010;Chevance, Caudroit, Romain, & Boiché, 2017;Conroy, Hyde, Doerksen, & Ribeiro, 2010;Rebar, Ram, & Conroy, 2015), and approach tendencies (Cheval, Sarrazin, Isoard-Gautheur, Radel, & Friese, 2015;Cheval, Sarrazin, Isoard-Gautheur, Radel, & Friese, 2016;Cheval, Sarrazin, & Pelletier, 2014) are important for the regulation of exercise behaviors (see Cheval, et al, 2018;Rebar, et al, 2016;Schinkoeth & Antoniewicz, 2017, for reviews). However, these studies have mainly focused on automatic reactions triggered by physical activity, whereas only few studies have examined automatic reactions triggered by sedentary behaviors or behaviors minimizing energetic cost.…”

“…Its impact on behavior is clearly illustrated in gait, where it determines the moment we switch from walking to running (Srinivasan & Ruina, 2006). In a recent systematic review, we contend that including the concept of energetic cost minimization into the dominant approaches to exercise behavior can improve our understanding of the exercise paradox (Cheval, et al, 2018). Because individuals are constantly trying to minimize energetic costs, we expect behaviors supporting this minimization to be positively valued and trigger automatic reactions.…”

A cross-species neural integration of gravity for motor optimisation

“…The metabolic rate was shown to influence body size, resource use, rate of senescence and survival probability (Berghänel et al, 2015; Brown et al, 2004; DeLong et al, 2010; Munch and Salinas, 2009; Strotz et al, 2018; Voorhies and Ward, 1999). Preserving muscle effort may thus represent an essential pursuit for the brain (Baraduc et al, 2013; Bramble and Lieberman, 2004; Carrier et al, 2011; Cheval et al, 2018a, 2018b; Farshchiansadegh et al, 2016; Huang et al, 2012; Inzlicht et al, 2018; Kurzban et al, 2013; Lee et al, 2016; Lieberman, 2015; Mazzoni et al, 2007; Morel et al, 2017; Pageaux, 2016; Pageaux and Gaveau, 2016; Selinger et al, 2015; Shadmehr et al, 2016; Walton et al, 2006; Wang and Dounskaia, 2012).…”