Mind, Brain, & Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Granada, Spain.
Mind, Brain, & Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain; Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Departamento de Psicología, Campus de Palmas Altas, 40000, Sevilla, Spain.
Neuroimage. 2018 Nov 1;181:203-210. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.07.009. Epub 2018 Jul 5.
Extant evidence suggests that acute exercise triggers a tonic power increase in the alpha frequency band at frontal locations, which has been linked to benefits in cognitive function. However, recent literature has questioned such a selective effect on a particular frequency band, indicating a rather overall power increase across the entire frequency spectrum. Moreover, the nature of task-evoked oscillatory brain activity associated to inhibitory control after exercising, and the duration of the exercise effect, are not yet clear. Here, we investigate for the first time steady state oscillatory brain activity during and following an acute bout of aerobic exercise at two different exercise intensities (moderate-to-high and light), by means of a data-driven cluster-based approach to describe the spatio-temporal distribution of exercise-induced effects on brain function without prior assumptions on any frequency range or site of interest. We also assess the transient oscillatory brain activity elicited by stimulus presentation, as well as behavioural performance, in two inhibitory control (flanker) tasks, one performed after a short delay following the physical exercise and another completed after a rest period of 15' post-exercise to explore the time course of exercise-induced changes on brain function and cognitive performance. The results show that oscillatory brain activity increases during exercise compared to the resting state, and that this increase is higher during the moderate-to-high intensity exercise with respect to the light intensity exercise. In addition, our results show that the global pattern of increased oscillatory brain activity is not specific to any concrete surface localization in slow frequencies, while in faster frequencies this effect is located in parieto-occipital sites. Notably, the exercise-induced increase in oscillatory brain activity disappears immediately after the end of the exercise bout. Neither transient (event-related) oscillatory activity, nor behavioural performance during the flanker tasks following exercise showed significant between-intensity differences. The present findings help elucidate the effect of physical exercise on oscillatory brain activity and challenge previous research suggesting improved inhibitory control following moderate-to-high acute exercise.
现有证据表明,急性运动在前额位置的阿尔法频段引发了一种紧张的力量增加,这与认知功能的益处有关。然而,最近的文献对这种对特定频段的选择性效应提出了质疑,表明整个频谱的整体功率增加。此外,与锻炼后抑制控制相关的任务诱发振荡脑活动的性质以及锻炼效果的持续时间尚不清楚。在这里,我们首次通过数据驱动的基于聚类的方法来研究两种不同运动强度(中高强度和低强度)下急性有氧运动期间和之后的稳态振荡脑活动,该方法无需对任何感兴趣的频率范围或部位进行预先假设,即可描述运动对大脑功能的影响的时空分布。我们还评估了两种抑制性控制(侧翼)任务中刺激呈现引起的瞬态振荡脑活动以及行为表现,一项任务在进行身体锻炼后的短暂延迟后进行,另一项任务在锻炼后 15 分钟的休息期后完成,以探索大脑功能和认知表现的锻炼诱导变化的时间过程。结果表明,与休息状态相比,运动期间的振荡脑活动增加,而与低强度运动相比,中高强度运动期间的增加更高。此外,我们的结果表明,增加的振荡脑活动的全局模式不仅限于慢频率的任何具体表面定位,而在更快的频率下,这种效应位于顶枕部位置。值得注意的是,运动后振荡脑活动的增加在运动结束后立即消失。无论是在运动后的侧翼任务中进行的瞬态(事件相关)振荡活动,还是行为表现,在两种强度之间都没有显示出显著的差异。本研究结果有助于阐明体育锻炼对振荡脑活动的影响,并挑战了先前的研究,即中高强度急性运动后可改善抑制控制。