Failure to identify an acute exercise effect on executive function assessed by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

Abstract

Purpose: Acute exercise has been linked to the facilitation of executive function, but little is known regarding executive function assessed by the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The present research consisted of two experiments aimed to determine whether acute aerobic exercise influences successive WCST performance. Methods: In Study 1, 27 young adults were randomly assigned to the exercise or reading control group and then instructed to perform the WCST before and after assigned treatment. In exercise group, participants completed a single bout aerobic exercise with moderate intensity for 20 min on a stationary bike. A similar experimental protocol was replicated in Study 2 with 24 late middle-aged adults to look for age differences during adulthood and control for a potential ceiling effect at young adult age. Results: Although a significant time effect was observed in young adults, both studies revealed that there was no main effect for treatment or an interaction between treatment and time on any of the WCST indices. Conclusion: Acute aerobic exercise failed to influence executive function as assessed by the WCST, revealing that this classical neuropsychological test tapping executive function may not be sensitive to acute exercise. Our findings suggest that acute exercise does not broadly affect the entire family of executive functions, or its effect on a specific aspect of executive function may be task-dependent, as proposed by Etnier and Chang (2009).

Does a Single Bout of Aerobic Exercise Improve Set Shifting in Healthy Young Adults? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Slusher and colleagues [23] show a significant large beneficial effect size estimate for exercise compared to the control (Hedges' g = .84, 95 % CI .04 to 1.65). However, Wang and colleagues [58] show only a small non-significant effect (Hedges' g = .09, 95 % CI -.66 to .85). It should be noted that the study from Slusher and colleagues [23] applied a mixture of aerobic and anaerobic exercise.…”

“…Of the 12 included studies, three applied a randomized controlled crossover design [51][52][53]. Nine studies applied a randomized controlled design [16,22,23,25,[54][55][56][57][58]. Time dependent measures of set shifting performance were available for 11 included studies.…”

Light aerobic exercise modulates executive function and cortical excitability

“…Meta‐analyses on the effect of single bouts of exercise on executive functions show a small but consistent improvement (Chang, Labban, Gapin, & Etnier, ). Nevertheless, some studies have failed to show an effect (Wang et al, ), suggesting exercise may not have broad widespread effects on all executive function domains. Indeed, our results show exercise enhanced several measures of the multitasking test, yet failed to modulate inhibitory control and spatial working memory.…”

Acute effects of moderate aerobic exercise on specific aspects of executive function in different age and fitness groups: A meta‐analysis

“…Especially for older adults, who had the greatest improvements in response time after a single aerobic exercise session, only a few effect sizes were available for accuracy measures. This is due to studies reporting either reaction time or accuracy (Barella et al, 2010;Chang, Chu, Wang, Song, & Wei, 2015;Cordova et al, 2009;Kamijo et al, 2009;Netz, Tomer, Axelrad, Argov, & Inbar, 2007;Wang et al, 2015). In future studies, this issue can be addressed by always reporting both measures, if they are available from the applied executive function test.…”