Effect of an acute bout of high- vs. low-intensity physical exercise on attentional networks.

Abstract

The effects of physical exercise on attentional performance have received considerable interest in recent years. Most of previous studies that assessed the effect of an acute bout of exercise on attentional performance have generally been approached by analysing single attentional functions in isolation, thus ignoring the functioning of other attentional functions, which characterizes the real perception-action environmental conditions. Here, we investigated the effect of two different intensities (low vs. high) of acute exercise on attentional performance by using the ANTI-Vea, a behavioral task that simultaneously measures three attentional functions (phasic alertness, orienting, and cognitive control) and the executive and arousal components of vigilance. 30 participants completed three experimental sessions: the first one to assess their physical fitness and baseline performance in the ANTI-Vea, and the other two sessions to assess changes in attentional and vigilance performance after an acute bout of high- vs. low-intensity physical exercise (in a counterbalanced order between participants). Beneficial effects on some accuracy scores (i.e., overall higher accuracy in the attentional sub-task and fewer false alarms in the executive vigilance sub-task) were observed in the low-intensity exercise condition compared to baseline and high-intensity. Additionally, the RT score of phasic alertness was increased after the low-intensity exercise in comparison with baseline. The present findings suggest that a bout of acute exercise at low-intensity might induce some short-term beneficial effects on some aspects of attention and vigilance.