A Post-Exercise Facilitation of Executive Function is Independent of Aerobically Supported Metabolic Costs

Publication date: Available online 13 October 2018Source: NeuropsychologiaAuthor(s): Matthew Heath, Andrea Petrella, Jonathan Blazevic, David Lim, Andre Pelletier, Glen BelfryAbstractA single-bout of aerobic or resistance training facilitates executive function and is a benefit thought to be specific to exercise durations greater than 20 minutes. We sought to determine whether an executive benefit is observed for a session as brief as 10-minutes, and whether distinct and participant-specific exercise intensities – and associated metabolic costs – influence the magnitude of the benefit. Participants completed exercise sessions – via cycle ergometer – at moderate (80% of lactate threshold [LT]), heavy (15% of the difference between LT and VO2 peak) and very-heavy (50% of the difference between LT and VO2 peak) intensities determined via an incremental ramp test to volitional exhaustion. Pre- and post-exercise executive function was examined via antisaccades – an executive task requiring a saccade mirror-symmetrical to a visual stimulus. Antisaccades are an ideal tool for examining post-exercise executive changes due to the resolution of eye-tracking and because the task is mediated via the same frontoparietal networks as modified following single-bout and chronic exercise. A non-executive prosaccade task (i.e., saccade to veridical target location) was also completed to determine if the putative post-exercise benefit was specific to executive function. Results sh...

Source: Neuropsychologia - October 13, 2018 Category: Neurology Source Type: research