Effects of acute aerobic and resistance exercise on executive function: An ERP study

Abstract

Objectives: This study addressed the effects of acute, moderate-intensity aerobic and resistance exercise on the shifting aspect of cognition following a 30-min recovery period. It also explored the neuro-electrical activation that underlies the relationship between acute exercise and cognitive function through the examination of P3b and N1 components of event-related potentials. Design: A counterbalanced, repeated-measures experimental design. Methods: Thirty-five volunteer young adults completed two experimental sessions (i.e., acute aerobic exercise (AE) and resistance exercise (RE), matched in terms of intensity, and one reading session (control). The AE entailed cycling at 60-70% of maximal heart rate reserve for 30 min. In the RE session, participants performed seven exercises with two sets of 8-12 repetitions at 70% of 10-repetition maximum. Each participant's neuro-electrical activation was recorded 30 min after each session while s/he completed the task-switching test. Results: After the 30-min recovery period, both AE and RE elicited shorter response times in global switching (Á 2 p = 0.24) and local switching (Á 2 p = 0.16) were observed when compared to control. Additionally, larger P3b amplitudes (but not N1 amplitudes) were evident in global switching (Á 2 p = 0.15) and local switching (Á 2 p = 0.16), regardless of exercise modality. Conclusions: The present findings suggest that acute exercise has positive effects on cognitive function. Exercise-induced alterations during the later stages of mental processing might result in superior performance. There were significant selective benefits in terms of brain function regardless of exercise modality.

Effects of Acute Aerobic Exercise Combined with Resistance Exercise on Neurocognitive Performance in Obese Women

“…The present findings suggest that faster cognitive processing to detect and process a stimulus in the environment [ 73 ] and more attentional resources allocated to process late general inhibition can be induced following acute exercise in obese individuals. Similarly, improvements in inhibition as assessed by the ERP P3 component of the cognitive tasks (e.g., task-switching, visuospatial attention task, and the Flanker task) following acute aerobic and resistance exercise interventions have also been reported in young [ 14 , 23 , 48 ] and older adults [ 10 ] as well as in individuals with developmental coordination disorders [ 9 ] and mild cognitive impairment [ 25 ], suggesting that acute exercise has a greater influence on cognitive functions involving diverse inhibitory control demands.…”

“…In spite of a lack of behavioral improvement in obese women induced by the acute aerobic-and-resistance exercise intervention when performing the Stroop task in the present study, beneficial effects on cognitive electrophysiological signals as measured by brain ERPs were observed in this study. Indeed, increased Stroop interference-related activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices due to an acute bout of a combination of aerobic and resistance exercise was reported in healthy young adults [ 48 ]. Although the ERP P2 component is extremely sensitive to arousal levels [ 60 , 61 ], P2 latency and amplitude were not significantly improved after an exercise intervention in the EG in the present study.…”

“…In terms of cognitive electrophysiological signals involved in inhibitory control, obese individuals have been demonstrated to show deviant ERP performance when performing the Stroop task [ 5 ]. Many empirical studies have reported that an acute bout of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise may elicit improved brain neuroelectric inhibition indices [ 9 , 10 , 23 , 25 , 48 ]. In addition, it has been observed that a single bout of acute resistance exercise effectively enhances cognition [ 74 , 75 ], but not many studies have so far examined the underlying electrophysiological processes, and the available findings are relatively heterogeneous [ 10 , 48 ].…”

“…The remaining effective ERP data in the Stroop task were separately averaged offline and constructed from congruent and incongruent conditions over a 1000 ms epoch beginning 200 ms before the onset of the target stimulus. The mean latencies and amplitudes of the P2, N2, and P3 components were measured for the Fz and Cz electrodes [ 48 ]. The time windows for detection of the P2, N2, and P3 components were 150–275 ms, 200–400 ms [ 49 ], and 300–800 ms [ 50 , 51 ], respectively.…”

Effect of Acute Physical Exercise on Executive Functions and Emotional Recognition: Analysis of Moderate to High Intensity in Young Adults

“…Likewise, it has been demonstrated that an acute PE brings benefits for some ways of performance on cognitive tasks after exercise. By the same token, executive functions improve after PE (Wu et al, 2019). Recent studies, however, affirm that there is not enough evidence that PE is positive for cognition or brain function and structure in child and young samples (Gunnell et al, 2018).…”