School of Kinesiology, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada.
Faculty of Health Sciences Brandenburg, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
Brain Cogn. 2024 Aug;179:106182. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2024.106182. Epub 2024 Jun 1.
A single bout of exercise improves executive function (EF) and is a benefit - in part -attributed to an exercise-mediated increase in cerebral blood flow enhancing neural efficiency. Limited work has used an event-related protocol to examine postexercise changes in preparatory phase cerebral hemodynamics for an EF task. This is salient given the neural efficiency hypothesis' assertion that improved EF is related to decreased brain activity. Here, event-related transcranial Doppler ultrasound was used to measure pro- (saccade to target) and antisaccades (saccade mirror-symmetrical target) preparatory phase middle cerebral artery velocity (MCAv) prior to and immediately after 15-min of aerobic exercise. Antisaccades produced longer reaction times (RT) and an increased preparatory phase MCAv than prosaccades - a result attributed to greater EF neural activity for antisaccades. Antisaccades selectively produced a postexercise RT reduction (ps < 0.01); however, antisaccade preparatory phase MCAv did not vary from pre- to postexercise (p=0.53) and did not correlate with the antisaccade RT benefit (p = 0.31). Accordingly, results provide no evidence that improved neural efficiency indexed via functional hyperemia is linked to a postexercise EF behavioural benefit. Instead, results support an evolving view that an EF benefit represents the additive interplay between interdependent exercise-mediated neurophysiological changes.
单次运动即可改善执行功能（EF），这部分归因于运动介导的大脑血流增加，从而提高了神经效率。有限的工作使用事件相关协议来检查 EF 任务的预备阶段大脑血液动力学的运动后变化。鉴于神经效率假说的断言，即改善 EF 与脑活动减少有关，这一点尤为重要。在这里，使用事件相关经颅多普勒超声来测量预备阶段（目标扫视）和反向扫视（扫视镜像对称目标）前和运动后 15 分钟内大脑中动脉速度（MCAv）。与正扫视相比，反向扫视产生更长的反应时间（RT）和增加的预备阶段 MCAv - 这归因于反向扫视的 EF 神经活动更大。反向扫视选择性地产生了运动后 RT 减少（ps <0.01）；然而，反向扫视预备阶段 MCAv 从运动前到运动后没有变化（p=0.53），并且与反向扫视 RT 益处没有相关性（p=0.31）。因此，结果没有提供证据表明，通过功能性充血来衡量的改善神经效率与运动后的 EF 行为益处有关。相反，结果支持一种不断发展的观点，即 EF 益处代表相互依存的运动介导的神经生理变化之间的附加相互作用。
