Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Clinical Neurosciences, Department of Psychiatry, Federal University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, BRAZIL.
Graduate Program in Physical Education UPE/UFPB, João Pessoa, PB, BRAZIL.
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2020 Oct;52(10):2207-2216. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002346.
Some evidence suggests that sedentary women may be more vulnerable to cognitive task-induced mental fatigue. Mental fatigue, in turn, may worse aerobic exercise performance, presumably via increased perceived effort. However, it remains unclear whether acute mental fatigue induction increases perceived effort and worsens endurance performance in high-level professional athletes and whether such effects are influenced by sex.
We studied 30 athletes (15 women and 16 men) in a single-blinded, randomized, controlled and crossover protocol. In separate visits, athletes either performed a 45-min cognitive task (Stroop's color-word conflict test) to induce mental fatigue or watched a 45-min documentary as control. Then athletes performed a time-to-exhaustion test on a treadmill.
Perceptual measures and cognitive performance indicated that the prolonged cognitive task induced a similar mental fatigue state in women and men. Cardiorespiratory and metabolic responses to the TEE did not change with mental fatigue in both sexes. Mental fatigue increased perceived effort during the time-to-exhaustion test, anticipated attainment of maximal effort, and shortened time to exhaustion similarly in women and men (mean ± SE, -27.3 ± 20.9 s for women vs -26.7 ± 15.1 s for men; P = 0.98).
The prolonged cognitive task provoked mental fatigue, anticipated attainment of maximal perceived effort, and worsened aerobic performance in professional runners with no sex differences. Although we did not contrasted athletes with nonathletes, our results suggest that being an athlete may somehow prevent women from developing greater mental fatigue and suffering more from its underlying effects compared with men.
有证据表明，久坐不动的女性可能更容易受到认知任务引起的精神疲劳的影响。精神疲劳反过来又可能会使有氧运动表现恶化，这可能是因为感知到的努力增加了。然而，目前尚不清楚急性精神疲劳诱导是否会增加高水平专业运动员的感知努力并使耐力表现恶化，以及这种影响是否会受到性别的影响。
我们采用单盲、随机、对照和交叉试验方案研究了 30 名运动员（15 名女性和 16 名男性）。在单独的访问中，运动员要么进行 45 分钟的认知任务（Stroop 颜色-单词冲突测试）以引起精神疲劳，要么作为对照观看 45 分钟的纪录片。然后，运动员在跑步机上进行至力竭测试。
感知测量和认知表现表明，长时间的认知任务会在女性和男性中引起类似的精神疲劳状态。心肺和代谢反应在两种性别中均未因精神疲劳而改变。精神疲劳在女性和男性的至力竭测试中都增加了感知努力，预期达到最大努力的程度，以及缩短了力竭时间（女性平均±SE，-27.3±20.9 秒与男性相比为-26.7±15.1 秒；P=0.98）。
长时间的认知任务会引起精神疲劳，预期达到最大感知努力的程度，并使专业跑步运动员的有氧运动表现恶化，而性别之间没有差异。尽管我们没有将运动员与非运动员进行对比，但我们的结果表明，作为运动员可能会以某种方式防止女性比男性更容易产生精神疲劳并遭受更多的负面影响。
