Ayaz Azar, Rahimi Alma, Buwadi Lian, Wang Yu-Bu, Zou Liye, Heath Matthew
Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, ON, N6A 3K7, London, Canada.
Body-Brain-Mind Laboratory, School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
Exp Brain Res. 2025 Mar 25;243(4):102. doi: 10.1007/s00221-025-07054-3.
A single bout of exercise transiently "boosts" executive function (EF) and is a benefit that may be linked to an increase in cerebral blood flow (CBF). In turn, some work has reported that music listening imparts a similar EF benefit and increases CBF. In the present work, we examined whether music listening provides an EF benefit comparable to aerobic exercise and whether combined music listening and aerobic exercise supports an additive benefit. To that end, healthy young adults (N = 22, 14 female, 19-28 years) completed 10-min single bouts of: (1) music listening (ML), (2) light intensity aerobic exercise (AE), (3) combined ML and AE (ML + AE), and (4) a non-AE and non-ML control condition. For all conditions, pre- and post-intervention EF was assessed via the antisaccade task (i.e., saccade mirror-symmetrical to a target) and transcranial Doppler ultrasound measured middle cerebral artery velocity (MCAv) to estimate CBF. Results showed that ML, AE and ML + AE conditions increased MCAv; however, only the latter two conditions produced a pre- to post-intervention reduction in antisaccade RTs and the benefit was not linked to a MCAv change. Moreover, frequentist and Bayesian statistics indicated that the reduction in antisaccade RTs was equivalent across AE and ML + AE conditions. Accordingly, a single bout of exercise - and not a single bout of music listening - supports a non-additive post-intervention EF benefit that is not related to an exercise-based increase in CBF. Such findings suggest that exercise serves as a simple and cost-effective tool that can "boost" EF in advance of occupational- or educational-demanding tasks.
单次运动可短暂“提升”执行功能（EF），这一益处可能与脑血流量（CBF）增加有关。相应地，一些研究报告指出，听音乐也能带来类似的EF益处并增加CBF。在本研究中，我们探究了听音乐是否能带来与有氧运动相当的EF益处，以及听音乐与有氧运动相结合是否能产生叠加益处。为此，健康的年轻成年人（N = 22，14名女性，年龄19 - 28岁）完成了10分钟的单次活动：（1）听音乐（ML），（2）低强度有氧运动（AE），（3）听音乐与有氧运动相结合（ML + AE），以及（4）非AE和非ML的对照条件。对于所有条件，干预前后的EF通过反扫视任务（即与目标呈镜像对称的扫视）进行评估，经颅多普勒超声测量大脑中动脉速度（MCAv）以估计CBF。结果显示，ML、AE和ML + AE条件下MCAv均增加；然而，只有后两种条件在干预前后使反扫视反应时间缩短，且这种益处与MCAv变化无关。此外，频率论和贝叶斯统计表明，AE和ML + AE条件下反扫视反应时间的缩短程度相当。因此，单次运动——而非单次听音乐——能带来干预后非叠加的EF益处，且这一益处与基于运动的CBF增加无关。这些发现表明，运动是一种简单且经济高效的工具，可在需要职业或教育要求的任务之前“提升”EF。
