Objective: To investigate the effects of aerobic exercise on working memory in college students with internet addiction and the characteristics of these effects as they change over time, from both behavioral and electroencephalographic (EEG) perspectives.
Methods: A longitudinal study design was employed, where 48 male college students with internet addiction were screened and randomly assigned to two groups (control and experimental). The experimental group completed 40-minute sessions of aerobic cycling exercise, three times a week, for 12 weeks; the control group maintained their original physical activity habits without any additional interventions. A 3 (time points: pre-experiment, 6 weeks, and 12 weeks post-experiment) × 2 (groups: control and experimental) × 3 (electrode sites: Fz, F3, F4) mixed factorial experimental design was used to explore the effects of aerobic exercise on working memory in college students with internet addiction and how these effects evolved over time.
Results: In the experimental group, the post-test accuracy for the 1-back task was significantly higher than the pre-test (P < 0.05); for the 2-back task, both the mid-test (P < 0.05) and post-test (P < 0.001) accuracies were significantly higher than the pre-test, with the post-test accuracy being significantly higher than the mid-test (P< 0.01). Time-frequency analysis revealed that, for both 1-back and 2-back tasks, the post-test alpha band (100-200 ms) energy values in the experimental group were higher than the pre-test values (P< 0.05). For the 2-back task, the mid-test (P< 0.05) and post-test (P < 0.001) theta band (300-500 ms) energy values in the experimental group were significantly higher than the pre-test values, with the post-test values being significantly higher than the mid-test values (P < 0.01).
Conclusion: (1) Moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can effectively improve working memory in college students with internet addiction, and the improvement becomes more significant as the duration of the exercise intervention increases. (2) Increases in early alpha band energy and later theta band energy in EEG are important neurophysiological indicators of the improvement in working memory among college students with internet addiction through moderate-intensity aerobic exercise.
